I hope there's some really good quality of video
of Hillary saying

"Lobbyists work for real Americans" - Hillary Clinton

that could be made into a TV commercial in 2 seconds

Well, that's an interesting question.  Unions can organise, certainly, in fact they best remember that's what they are meant to be doing.  They can form PAC's, and do.  They should be able to lobby and do.  They should be able to recommend that members support this or that candidate or legislation and I suppose they should even be allowed to administer and facilitate contributions from their members for a particular candidacy.

But why the hell should the executive leadership of the AFL-CIO want to give member's money to a campaign for any other reasons than those of the board members of GE or Boeing when they do it?  And what does that do to my franchise?  All the poor slob citizens ever get to do is vote, and contribute what fraction of four grand of our hard-earned dosh we can afford.  We rarely get the time of day from our elected officials until an election rolls around.  If you're a shareholder or union member you have your extra vote at the AGM or the union elections, I don't get to vote there.

As far as I am concerned the corporations, the unions and the damn Sierra Club for that matter have every opportunity to schmooze the politicians for the other three and a half years out of four.  Elections are my one shot at having a say and I want anyone but my fellow citizens to butt out and wait their turn.  It's bad enough as it is.

And just one last point, the only check on corporations, who are not values oriented, is our own government through regulation.  How is that mechanism meant to be managed properly if the regulators are under the influence, benign or otherwise, of the regulatees?

Edwards has returned money to SEIEU.   Not because he doesn't support their cause but because the playing field is out of wack.

Who's going to be more effective lobbying congress - the union workers making 50K a year or the CEOs and Vice Presidents making millions?

Also, the CEO  gets to use corporate money via PAC donations and paying lobbyists and does not have to use personal funds.
Union members must take out of pay checks to lobby.

I get your point but it is so far out of wack that it's not a fair fight.

Look how long it took to get a meager minimum wage increase.  No doubt the chamber of commerce lobby had something to say about that and that's why it took so long

you sound like a middle school bully.

I know as much about that industry as he/she does.

Pharma does almost NOTIHNG that would be called R&D  (research and development) by most basic scientists.

they used to do R&D though much less than federally funded academic labs.

Today pharma calls R& D what are realy just "clinical trials", postmarketing studies and acquisitions of drugs from smaller companies.

today's drug companies are really serial acquirers and marketing groups.

they really discover almost no new drugs.

As an Example Lipitor - pfizer's best all time drug was bought from research done by Warner-Lambert that no longer EXISTS.

Viagra was a complete accidental discovery at a smart physician who noticed his heart patient was getting boners...

Very very little of what Pharma does today is real research.. Clinical trials and acquisitions.

Just like Murdoch/Newscopse bought MySpace we'd give very little credit to newscorp for social networking