As the Democratic presidential candidates genuflected before the radical crazies of the America-hating left at the recent Yearly Kos Convention in Chicago, one questioner raised an issue that is always dear to the hearts of liberals: the money that special interest lobbyists and their PACs contribute to political candidates and the influence that those special interests have over lawmakers.

Of the three principal candidates, Hilary Rodham Clinton, Barrack Hussein Obama, and former Senator John Edwards, only one – Hillary Clinton – came within a mile of getting it right.

Clinton pointed out that not all lobbyists are evil and that most of them play a vital role in the legislative process. She pointed out that there are lobbyists on Capitol Hill who represent nurses, social workers, and yes, even major corporations... all very legitimate interests.

Her principal opponent, Barrack Hussein Obama, pounced on her (figuratively), shaking his finger at her and shouting that the insurance and pharmaceutical industries had spent a billion dollars on their lobbying operations in the last session of Congress – a ridiculous charge for which he had not a smidgen of proof. Of course, he failed to mention the lobbying expenditures of the teachers unions, the AFL-CIO, the trial lawyers, and radical environmentalists – four of the ten most powerful special interests in Washington.

These are lobbying groups which support Democrats, almost exclusively, and who, unlike their corporate counterparts, openly demand a quid pro quo in exchange for their support. Combine their lobbying expenditures with those of anti-American billionaire George Soros, and the pharmaceutical, insurance, and oil industries, combined, pale by comparison.

Obama’s anti-Clinton diatribe was followed by a shameless pander from Edwards, who asked for a show of hands of those in the audience who are represented by lobbyists in Washington. Looking out over the audience, Edwards announced, with mock surprise, that he was able to count just three hands.

Although not very dramatic, it was probably the most telling moment of the convention because it tells us much about the left’s profound ignorance of how our system actually works.

In the summer of 1985, after retiring as a lobbyist for a major oil company, I was asked to debate a representative of Common Cause before the annual meeting of the National Association for Public Opinion Research, the professional association of pollsters and opinion researchers. As expected, my opponent repeated all of the same tired old charges about how special interest lobbyists and their PACs buy votes in Congress. But I knew that charge was coming and I was prepared for it.

When it came my turn to respond, I began by assuring my audience that I would be a fool to try to convince them that no lobbyist has ever bought a vote in Congress. “After all,” I explained, “we are all represented in Congress by the kind of people who might, for example, exaggerate their church contributions or their Salvation Army contributions on their federal tax returns,” leaving those in the audience to wrestle with the question of whether or not they, themselves, were any more honest than members of Congress.

Then, to illustrate the point that we are all members of special interest pressure groups, I selected at random a pleasant-looking man seated in the front row and asked him to stand.

In several minutes of questioning, he confessed to being a high school math teacher who moonlighted as an adjunct professor of mathematics, teaching applied statistics at a small junior college. I also learned that he was an avid quail hunter and that his wife was a part time realtor, a gardener, and an environmental activist. Between them, they held memberships in the National Education Association, the American Association of College and University Professors, the American Wildlife Federation, the National Rifle Association, the National Association of Realtors, the Garden Clubs of America, and the Sierra Club... four of which are among the ten most powerful and biggest-spending lobbies in Washington.

I’d hit the jackpot. I asked the gentleman if he felt as though he was blessed with an uncommon amount of political power, and he responded, “No, not at all.”

Then I turned to the audience and I reminded them that, although we don’t often think about it, we are all “special interests.” I said, “Many of us, like your colleague here in the front row, have many special interests. So, now that we all understand that he and his family help pay the salaries of some of the most influential lobbyists in Washington, all of whom have access to well-funded PACs, I must ask you this question: Which of the special interests who represent this man in Washington would you wish to have silenced?” There was silence in the auditorium.

The responses that Obama and Edwards gave at the Yearly Kos convention prove only that the letters

“d-e-m” aren’t always an abbreviation for the word “Democrat.” As often as not they stand for the word “demagogue.”