From the Associated Press

The Edwards campaign on Thursday called on Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama to co-sign a letter to party leaders decrying the connection between political donations and Washington’s lobbying industry.

“There are now more than 60 lobbyists for every member of Congress. The system is clearly rigged against the people who make our country great,” Edwards wrote to Obama is seeking his support.

First of all let me point out that the AFL-CIO which Edwards had nothing but praise for in the last debate, spent over four million dollars to have lobbyists work on their behalf in 2004 when Mr. Edwards ran for Vice President.

Second this has to be one of the dumbest moves I have ever seen and it puts the DNC in an incredibly awkward place in which it has to offend one of its candidates and a chunk of its far-left base. Why can’t the Democratic Party as a whole stop taking lobbyists money whether directly or indirectly? Because it needs to win elections.

You see it wasn’t that long ago when Democrats seemed like they didn’t have a fighting chance to ever come close to raising the kind of money Republicans could. Then things changed. Suddenly monied interests, after witnessing the Clinton economy, started turning their eyes toward Democrats. With them came lobbyists who only used to really toss a few pennys to Democrats for every dollar they gave to Republicans.

You cannot run a campaign or win an election on love or piety, on hope or the better nature of mankind. You need MONEY. The DNC knows this, Edwards knows this, Obama knows this. It is why they take money from people who used to be lobbyists and those who will be lobbyists again. Its a nice loophole “well they aren’t lobbyists today, who cares about tomorrow”. It is why they employ lobbyists on their campaigns, why they employ bundlers to go out and raise money from these people indirectly.

At the end of the day I don’t see Edwards or Obama turning down money from those people who employ lobbyists. If you are against lobbying there is only three ways to end it. Somehow ban the entire system, refuse to let them influence you or stop employing them completely. Seems to be the easiest thing to do aside from ignoring them is to stop employing them. So shouldn’t Edwards walk over to the AFL-CIO and say “hey, you guys, stop giving these people money and give it to me instead. You won’t need a lobby, you have me!” Which in itself is the basis of lobbying.

I just think this is a move that will score some cheap political points on the fringe liberal wing of the party but its going to really bother and put out a lot of other Democrats.