contributions to the campaign between april and september of last year research conducted by the center for responsive politics show that the obama campaign except the twenty two hundred fifty bucks from five lobbyists as well as forty five hundred dollars from three individuals who became federal lobbyist after donating to their campaign the obama campaign has pledged to refuse contributions of lobbyists ever since the two thousand a campaign its policy by the obama campaign is meant to curb the influences of high powered lobbyist who see money as a means of control over the campaign it's refreshing to see a political figure trying to weed out the influences of lobbyist politics however the same can be said for the likes of mitt romney who has already accepted over a quarter million dollars from registered federal law since the bad r. and c. chairman reince priebus compared president obama to captain tell me this tino the captain of the run aground italian cruise ship will abandon the ship before all the passengers and safely gotten off here's a previous had to say in an interview on face the nation sunday mo

that has obama thus far collected the most money from defense industry employees the center for responsive politics has just released figures that show that so far through december of two thousand and eleven the president has collected one hundred twelve thousand dollars from defense industry donors mitt romney only fifty six thousand rick santorum not even five thousand ron paul. well interestingly enough just under fifty thousand but so what all this shows you once again i will repeat is that the democrat versus republican line is all complete baloney when it comes to defense when we say that made very clear every time that are completely polarized congress comes together easily to pass another defense authorization act it also shows you how the cries over defense cuts that we keep hearing are also baloney the four hundred fifty billion dollars in cuts to defense that congress authorized to happen over the next ten years they leave the pentagon doing just fine let me remind you the defense spending is actually still continuing to grow that even with these cuts will be spending more than we did at

well you know the numbers that i just quoted came from the center for responsive politics and last year the entire tech sector lobbied fifteen million dollars worth of money compared to the after mentioned ninety four million so clearly they haven't been playing this p.c. game you know we we have a very different perspective in our industry we work we operate on the most level playing field the world has ever seen the internet is a meritocracy in the purest form as long as it's free and fair all links are created equal the best stuff does well it's it's very encouraging to know we can build something and if we build something better than our competition it can thrive they can succeed whether it's a business or whether it's a nonprofit or whether it's an idea and we i think naively assume that well obviously everything else must work that way and then to see something so blatant as what we've seen with soap and work absolutely not that way where the best ideas were ignored and what we've got is instead what was basically paid for it those two world came crashing together and so you know

according to the center for responsive politics, he raised $32 million as of september.ewt gingrich 2.8 million. deputy political news director mark murray. let's talk about the latest shot at mitt romney saying he was the weakest ever. >> these are the latest shots he had at mitt romney. he reviewed in his concession speech on tuesday and he continued the assault. there is a new tv ad he is running in new hampshire and south carolina hitting at mitt romney. the gloves are off and how mitt romney ends up responding back. >> obviously let's talk about the realities here. rick santorum may have had the success in iowa as did mike huckabee. you and all of the other experts point out over and over again it is about the money here. we can talk about personality and enthusiasm. we can talk about stories and it is about the cash. santorum raised a million in a couple of days. that's not enough. >> money certainly does help and covers over a lot of shortcomings, but four years ago, mitt romney was the best finance person on the republican side and he lost the nomination to john

average winning house candidate spent about $1.4 million to get here according to the center for responsive politics% more than a decade ago. >> my big issue is the debt. >> reporter: traffic engineer ken vaughn is another first time candidate in virginia. >> ken vaughn. >> maria. >> running for u.s. congress. >> reporter: we caught up with him at a breakfast hosted by the local chamber of commerce. >> would you be willing to have a fund-raiser for me? that would be great. >> reporter: if vaughn wins the republican primary, he'll be running against gerald connolly. >> i was fortunate enough, i was able to take after once again this was very carefully considered with my wife, we put in a big chunk of money ourselves in this campaign. >> reporter: you did? >> yes. >> reporter: so you are partly self-financing? >> not nearly enough to win, but it is enough to get started. >> reporter: that big chunk, $1,000 from his 401(k). he aims to raise $2 million for the general election. for ken vaughn, the cause is worth it. >> make a difference, normal people have to get up and run. >> reporter: john douglas sa

the center for responsive politics says the former massachusetts governor has received more than $3.8 million from wall street stockbrokers, brokerage companies and bond dealers through december 5th. romney's take is about five times more than the rest of his competitors combined. next is texas governor rick perry followed by utah governor jon huntsman, ron paul and michele bachmann with the rest trailing her. >> well, you want to make nice with everybody if you're a donor at this early stage in the race. i think typically when you talk about the financial sector you'll see donors giving more broadly to the sort of establishment friendly kind of republicans, your mitt romneys, jon huntsman, rick perry. all of those raised money on wall street. >> these are not necessarily the companies themselves, they also include others that include people who work for political action committees that are associated with the wall street firms or individuals who work for these companies. now, at the top, goldman sachs, $2 million. the securities firm had to pay record fines to settle a fraud case inv

. >> slightly more than $7 million, linda, according to the center for responsive politics. greg from the university of maryland. >> pat, howard beach, new york. >> sam single ton, myrtle beach, south carolina. >> i appreciate that, doctor. and jason wilcox, provo. >> way to go, jackson. please remember if you sign up for bill o'reilly premium membership you get killing lincoln free of charge. finally, pinheads and patriots. mark wahlberg making tons of money playing macho guys. >> you got something for me? >> come on, man. just give it to him. just give it to him. >> yeah, i didn't think so. >> stop it! stop it! what are you doing? >> that had to hurt. but in the february edition of men's journal magazine, said if you were on one of the 9/11 hijacked planes, he would have saved all on board. obviously that's an irresponsible hypothetical. now mr. wahlberg has apologized. so he's a pinhead for saying that stuff but a patriot for recognizing it. if you like to spout off about the factor, flown talk about tonight, o'reilly foxnews.com, o'reillyly foxnews.com. the word of the d

the center for responsive politics says the former massachusetts governor has received more than $3.8 street stock brokers, brokerage companies and bond dealers through december 5th. romney's take is about five times more than the rest of his competitors combined. next is texas governor rick perry, followed by utah governor jon huntsman, texas congressman ron paul and minnesota congresswoman michele bachmann with the rest trailing her. >> you want to make nice with everybody, if you are a donor at this early stage in the race. typically, when you talk about the financial sector, you'll see donors giving more broadly to the establishment friendly kind of republicans. your mitt romneys, jon huntsman, rick perry. >> who were the top donors? remember these are not necessarily the companies themselves. they could also be people working for these companies or their political action committees. at the top, goldman sachs, $2 million. goldman is also romney's top wall street donor. next, bain capital, a firm whose specialties include corporate takeovers. romney is a former director there and s

the center for responsive politics says the former massachusetts governor has received more than $3.8 million from wall street stock brokers, brokerage companies and bond dealers through december 5th. romney's take is about five times more than the rest of his competitors combined. next is texas governor rick perry, followed by utah governor jon huntsman, texas congressman ron paul and minnesota congresswoman michele bachmann, with the rest trailing her. >> well, you want to make nice with everybody if you're a donor at this early stage in the race. i think typically, when you talk about the financial sector, you're going to see donors giving more broadly to the sort of establishment-friendly kind of republicans, your mitt romneys, jon huntsman, rick perry. all those candidates raised a lot of money on wall street. >> reporter: who are the top donors? remember, these are not necessarily the companies themselves, they could also be people working for these companies or their political action committees. at the top, goldman sachs, $2 million. goldman is also romney's top wall street don

the center for responsive politics says the former massachusetts governor has received more than $3.8illion from wall street stock brokers, brokerage companies, and bond dealers. that's through december 5th. now, romney's take is about five times more than the rest of his competitors combined. next is texas governor rick perry, followed by utah governor jon huntsman, texas congressman ron paul, and minnesota congresswoman michele bachmann, with the rest trailing her. >> well, you want to make nice with everybody if you're a donor at this early stage in the race. i think, typically, when you talk about the financial sector,y going to see donors giving more broadly to the sort of establishment-friendly kind of republicans. your mitt romneys, jon huntsman, rick perry, all of those candidates raised a lot of money on wall street. >> reporter: and so, natalie, everyone's covering all their bases at this point. >> and, you know, it's interesting, because a lot of people looking down on wall street in the past year. they might be paying attention to who wall street is putting money behind. w

according to nonpartisan center for responsive politics.lmost 300 super pacs currently registered. >> and much of this explosion can be traced back to the supreme court and the landmark citizens united decision two years ago. the justices eased prairie strictions on federal election spending by outside groups allowing corporations, unions and advocacy groups to spend unlimited amounts of cash to influence an election. >> five more conservative members in the majority said this is an easy case. this is elections. it's why weets have free speech. therefore this is constitutionally protected. >> the ruling put corporations and unions on equal footing with individuals who have in reality been able to spend their own personal fortunes advocating for campaigns for decades. for example, newt gingrich supporter sheldon adelson and billionaire democratic backer george soros. previously though, those fortunes had to be spent by the individual directly. not through a group like traditional political action committees. while experts dispute the direct

it's not a web site i run, so i'm not -- [laughter] it's run by an organization by the center for responsive politics, you can go under personal finances, and you can look at the pdf files, not at the summations by the organization because sometimes there are slight clerical errors. and look at their financial disyours. and what i did was look at particularly times when something dramatic was happening, the financial crisis in 2008, health care reform in 2009. but look at your elected representative, and and see are they an active stock trader, do they do a lot of land deals? if they do, look at their stock transactions and see, you know, are they on the senate banking committee, and are they buying and selling a lot of bank stock, you know? if there's some sort of crossover because that's where you're going to get access to really sensitive information if you have oversight over a particular area. and then i would look at the, um, you know, their real estate holdings. they're not required to list their residence, only holdings. and then you can look up the earmarks they've issued at a web site calle

we have the editorial and communications director for the center for responsive politics. of that? this is historical election for lot of reasons including the super pacs. what impact are they having so far? >> this is the new 800-pound gorilla in the room, the super pac. there are 300 of them now almost registered with the fec. only a handful of them have been spending big money though. about 27 1/2 million dollars. almost a third of that has been spent by a super pac supporting mitt romney called restore our future. jenna: interesting. that seems to be the most successful one so far? >> well, it's the one that has had the most success raising monly clearly. jenna: interesting to see the ap analysis. the associated press took a look in the primaries what was the most effective way for candidates to get the message out whether through retail politics, through flyers, through dinners. they were looking at all sorts of ways. they said advertisement was the number one way voters in the primaries have been influenced thus far. is that all because of the super pacs because of th

according to the nonpartisan center for responsive politics. there are almost 300 super pacs currently registered. and much of the explosion can be traced back here to the supreme court, with the landmark citizens united decision two years ago. the justices eased prior restrictions on federal election spending by outside groups allowing corporations, unions and advocacy groups to spend unlimited amounts of cash to influence an election. >> five more conservative members in the majority said -- this is an easy case. this is elections. it's why we have free speech. therefore, this is constitutionally protected. >> reporter: the ruling put corporations and unions on equal footing with individuals who have, in reality, been able to spend their own personal fortunes advocating for campaigns for decades. for example, newt gingrich supporter, sheldon addleson and billionaire george soros but previously the fortune had to be spent by the individual directly not through a group like traditional election committees. experts dispute the direct impact of t

. >> i should report that number comes from the center for responsive politics. >> i'm not saying that'sming from the tech sector last year was 15 million. >> still a lot. >> google that. i urge you to. >> final word to will cain. >> obviously this is an extremely complicated problem. most people at home don't understand what s so pa, stop on line piracy act. we have a legitimate problem. our boss creates something and an yoef shore company pirates it and gives it away for free. the solution is the debate. how do you stop this? the debate is do we make people like reddit take links off their site. >> everybody is against piracy. at the end of the day you should be able to move forward with a solution. nice to have you. thanks for being with us. >>> still to come this morning on "starting point," america's envoy was heading into pakistan, they're saying stay away. >>> mitt romney under fire again. rivalries and others would like to see his tax returns now. not in april. we'll talk about that when we come back after this break. back then he had something more important to do. he wasn't foc

first time since 1999 that lobbying spending has dropped, according to our friends at the center for responsive politicsg more on lobbying, talking about google that spent $11.4 million up from just $5.2 million the year before in lobbying spending. national association of realtors spent over $22 million. conocophillips paid out more than $20.5 million in lobbying spending here in washington. the thinking is all of this is happening in terms of the decline this lobbying spending because there's not all that much action on capitol hill. in 2010 we had the remnants of the health law, the dodd-frank fight. we didn't see that much as last year and i don't think we'll see that much this year going into an election year. could be another sparse year for lobbyists in washington. >> it's i hard to lobby when it's almost a given legislation will be hard to pass. >> that's right. they are treading water. they don't like to do that. they like to have a major ball to push up that hill. >> i thought the economy might have had something to do with lobbying expenses being trimmed. paralysis is probably the bigger dyna