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The Washington Post notes an odd coincidence between the University of Chicago Medical Center, where Michelle Obama worked as a vice-president until recently, and a major Barack Obama donor. The UCMC, under Michelle’s supervision, granted a $650,000 contract to a local minority contractor for upgrading the center’s intranet. In her 2006 report, Michelle listed only Blackwell Consulting in demonstrating how she had strengthened ties to the local community. Robert Blackwell, however, turns out to be something more than just a lucky local:

Two years ago, the office of Michelle Obama, the vice president for community relations at the University of Chicago Medical Center, published a glossy report detailing the improvements her office had made in the lives of local residents, in part by increasing ties to minority contractors.
Center administrators declined to disclose which businesses benefited; the report lists one — Blackwell Consulting Services.
In 2005, the center expanded its bidding process and invited African American businessman Robert Blackwell Sr. to join a competition to upgrade the center’s intranet, the in-house equivalent of a Web site. His company, Blackwell Consulting, won contracts totaling nearly $650,000.
Blackwell and his family, records show, have been longtime donors to the political campaigns of Michelle Obama’s husband, Barack. Robert Blackwell Jr., a former partner in the firm, is a major fundraiser for Barack Obama. At various times, Blackwell Sr. says, his and his son’s businesses each have retained Barack Obama as an attorney.

Blackwell not only is a major fundraiser for Obama, but employed him as an attorney — while getting public funds through UCMC from Michelle Obama. Does this sound like a conflict of interest? For one thing, did Blackwell’s payments to Obama for legal services result from any actual work, or was this a method of getting cash to the Obamas while avoiding campaign-finance regulations?


Michelle’s contract award raises even more questions. Did she give the contract to Blackwell as a payoff for his efforts to raise money for her husband? Even more to the point, did the contract give Blackwell money to put back into Obama’s campaign coffers? UCMC is a public entity, run from public funds. The appearance here is that the Obamas had a way to channel taxpayer funds to a major contributor and then back to themselves, both personally and politically.


That also puts a new light on Barack Obama’s earmarks for UCMC. In 2005, he almost tripled the pork to the medical center to over $310,000; in 2006, he more than tripled it again to $1 million for the construction of a new pavillion for the hospital. How much of that ended up with Blackwell, or with other “local contractors” who either employed Obama as an attorney or contributed to his campaigns?



This is just the tip of the iceberg of Blackwell's association with Obama.

Obama’s efforts for Blackwell

And just what is McCain's (and other Arizona lawmakers') record on pork barrel spending?