Unintended Consequences of Dems/OWS

Annie

Diamond Member
Nov 22, 2003
50,848
4,827
1,790
I mean who could possibly have foreseen this? :lol:

Wall St.: Dems can't have it both ways - POLITICO.com Print View

Wall St.: Dems can't have it both ways
By: Robin Bravender and Anna Palmer
October 18, 2011 01:09 PM EDT

After the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent a recent email urging supporters to sign a petition backing the wave of Occupy Wall Street protests, phones at the party committee started ringing.

Banking executives personally called the offices of DCCC Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) and DCCC Finance Chairman Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) last week demanding answers, three financial services lobbyists told POLITICO.

“They were livid,” said one Democratic lobbyist with banking clients.

The execs asked the lawmakers: “What are you doing? Do you even understand some of the things that they’ve called for?” said another lobbyist with financial services clients who is a former Democratic Senate aide.

Democrats’ friends on Wall Street have a message for them: you can’t have it both ways.

President Barack Obama and other top Democrats are parroting the anti-corporate rhetoric running through the Occupy Wall Street protests, trying to tap into the movement’s energy but keep the protesters at arms’ length.

But many bankers aren’t buying the distinction. And some financial services lobbyists and industry insiders say the liberal line will make swing givers think twice before opening their checkbooks this year.

“Most Wall Street guys, they feel like they’re going to be burned in effigy,” said Anthony Scaramucci, managing partner of SkyBridge Capital, who gave to Obama in 2008 but is now fundraising for Mitt Romney. Some moderate donors, who have given to both parties, “fled from Obama in his support of the Wall Street protests,” he said.

In 2008 Obama edged out John McCain in Wall Street fundraising and Democrats overall raised about as much as Republicans. Giving patterns went back to normal in 2010 when the GOP came out back on top.

This cycle Democrats have a particularly tough sell, since they pushed through a financial regulatory reform law last year and Mitt Romney has emerged as a Republican presidential front-runner, whose deep Wall Street ties clash with Obama’s recent populist overtures. The lip service to occupiers is only hurting an already rocky relationship.

“You can’t have it both ways,” said one in-house financial services lobbyist. “It just makes it harder for people who are Democrats in New York, Boston, Chicago to on the one hand be demogagued and then be asked ‘Hey, you can get your picture with the president for $30,000.’ It doesn’t square.”...
 
Thank you, Annie for this interesting piece. It does put the Democrats in a hard place. However, what percentage of their coffers are made up from corporations? I realize corporations divvie up to both parties to stay in the game, but I thought the Democrats were on the lower end of the receiving line.

We still have a lot of time before the November elections. Bad press and weather conditions may have some influence on the popularity of the OWS before the near time election. By the time next spring and summer comes, governors and mayors make take a more stringent attitude of having these protests go on without parameters due to their unruly behavior.
 
Thank you, Annie for this interesting piece. It does put the Democrats in a hard place. However, what percentage of their coffers are made up from corporations? I realize corporations divvie up to both parties to stay in the game, but I thought the Democrats were on the lower end of the receiving line.

We still have a lot of time before the November elections. Bad press and weather conditions may have some influence on the popularity of the OWS before the near time election. By the time next spring and summer comes, governors and mayors make take a more stringent attitude of having these protests go on without parameters due to their unruly behavior.

Not Obama, he got the lion's share last go round.
 
The Masters don't like it when their servants bite the hands that feed them.
 
Thank you, Annie for this interesting piece. It does put the Democrats in a hard place. However, what percentage of their coffers are made up from corporations? I realize corporations divvie up to both parties to stay in the game, but I thought the Democrats were on the lower end of the receiving line.

We still have a lot of time before the November elections. Bad press and weather conditions may have some influence on the popularity of the OWS before the near time election. By the time next spring and summer comes, governors and mayors make take a more stringent attitude of having these protests go on without parameters due to their unruly behavior.

Not Obama, he got the lion's share last go round.

Yea, he did.

And, of course, it has been the tradition in the DC/Wall St relationship for the President to say one thing publicly, while telling Wall St "it's just words, ignore it, it's business as usual." The problem, for Obama, is that he has allowed - and encouraged - the ratcheting up of 'hate' against Wall St (mainly so Americans don't stop and think about who it is that encouraged Wall St). Bankers are not stupid, and they can and will dumb Obama in the crapper if it suits them.
 
Okay, kids. Let's get real.

The Wall Street types only opened their checkbooks for Obama after he bested Hillary and McCain appeared to be pretty hopeless. They were trying to buy influence, not because they were agreeing with Obama or really wanted to see him in the White House.

Obama has to go after Wall Street at this point. Someone is to blame for this mess, and he isn't going to admit it's him. Wall Street is a good target because they really are responsible for a lot of the mess. So I think that this OWS is about as AstroTurf as the TEA Party was.

Will it work? Maybe.

Of course, Wall Street could help its own position by actually helping the recovery rather than frustrating it.
 
Okay, kids. Let's get real.

The Wall Street types only opened their checkbooks for Obama after he bested Hillary and McCain appeared to be pretty hopeless. They were trying to buy influence, not because they were agreeing with Obama or really wanted to see him in the White House.

Obama has to go after Wall Street at this point. Someone is to blame for this mess, and he isn't going to admit it's him. Wall Street is a good target because they really are responsible for a lot of the mess. So I think that this OWS is about as AstroTurf as the TEA Party was.

Will it work? Maybe.

Of course, Wall Street could help its own position by actually helping the recovery rather than frustrating it.

Why should he admit that 'it's him'? It wasn't him.
 
Okay, kids. Let's get real.

The Wall Street types only opened their checkbooks for Obama after he bested Hillary and McCain appeared to be pretty hopeless. They were trying to buy influence, not because they were agreeing with Obama or really wanted to see him in the White House.

Obama has to go after Wall Street at this point. Someone is to blame for this mess, and he isn't going to admit it's him. Wall Street is a good target because they really are responsible for a lot of the mess. So I think that this OWS is about as AstroTurf as the TEA Party was.

Will it work? Maybe.

Of course, Wall Street could help its own position by actually helping the recovery rather than frustrating it.

Why should he admit that 'it's him'? It wasn't him.

I was talking in terms of "why the economy hasn't gotten any better", which clearly is his fault in that he's been there for three years now and it hasn't. Sorry that wasn't clear to you.
 
Incidently, I also think that if Obama was going to go after Wall Street, he should have done it in 2009, and prosecuted the bad actors for their role in the mess. Now it looks like a shallow political ploy.
 
(The Occupy Wall Street Protestors thoroughly understand the sex, drugs, and anarchy part of their protests, but when it comes to identifying "Dodd-Frank" and the bill's relationship with what they are protesting against its "Duuuh! Hey! Whichwaydhego?"

LSD blocks sensory input into that part of the brain that integrates and correlates incoming sensory information providing the organism with a realistic picture of the world around them. That's why some of its earlier users chose to sit down in the middle of a five lane in front of oncoming eighteen wheelers thinking somehow that the onrushing 80,000 lb vehicles wouldn't hurt them)

"Are You Smarter Than A Wall Street Occupier?

You would almost have to be. New York magazine asked 50 “occupiers” a series of questions about public issues. As you might expect, the results were appalling. One of the occupiers’ principal demands, I take it, is for more government regulation of financial institutions. So you might expect them to have some idea what the current regulatory regime is. Nope: when asked to identify Dodd-Frank–not to give a detailed description of its provisions, but only to say generally what it relates to–more than 80% had no idea, and many of the rest were wrong:"

Are You Smarter Than A Wall Street Occupier? | Power Line
 
Incidently, I also think that if Obama was going to go after Wall Street, he should have done it in 2009, and prosecuted the bad actors for their role in the mess. Now it looks like a shallow political ploy.

Shallow political ploys are pretty much all we're going to get out of Democrats and Republicans. If we're really tired of the status quo, we've got to stop voting for it.

End The Fed signs popping up in the protests.:clap2::clap2:

I find that genuinely hopeful. The 'occupiers' and the tea party types need to understand that they are natural allies, far more so than the vested parties that they cling to. The Democrats are never going to serve up real socialism and the Republicans are never going to support a real free market. There's just no 'percentage' in it for them. Instead of glomming onto the majors, the respective movements need to recognize the very real overlap in their agendas and cooperate to achieve the common ends.

I've spoken with a fair number of OWS supporters and they aren't stupid (despite the token goofballs the media sifts out). They want to put a stop to government/corporate collusion and most of them understand that Obama is every bit as much a corporatist as his Republican counterparts. The crucial step is to show them that we won't solve the problem of corporate influence over government by simply giving them more government to play with.
 
Last edited:
Okay, kids. Let's get real.

The Wall Street types only opened their checkbooks for Obama after he bested Hillary and McCain appeared to be pretty hopeless. They were trying to buy influence, not because they were agreeing with Obama or really wanted to see him in the White House.

Obama has to go after Wall Street at this point. Someone is to blame for this mess, and he isn't going to admit it's him. Wall Street is a good target because they really are responsible for a lot of the mess. So I think that this OWS is about as AstroTurf as the TEA Party was.

Will it work? Maybe.

Of course, Wall Street could help its own position by actually helping the recovery rather than frustrating it.

Why should he admit that 'it's him'? It wasn't him.

I was talking in terms of "why the economy hasn't gotten any better", which clearly is his fault in that he's been there for three years now and it hasn't. Sorry that wasn't clear to you.

That's not his fault either. The majority of the world is in a clusterfuck economically. That's not down to Obama.... it's down to a perfect storm of bubbles bursting, and economic chickens coming home to roost.

There's only so much a President can do - but I will grant you than he sure as hell hasn't helped the situation.
 
I believe this reaction is exactly what OWS is looking for...corporate financial outrage and forcing the government machine to realize it is in the middle and by its own doing I might add.
 
I believe this reaction is exactly what OWS is looking for...corporate financial outrage and forcing the government machine to realize it is in the middle and by its own doing I might add.

I'm sure that many of the protesters genuinely believe it... but they are being manipulated by others who do not have that agenda.
 

New Topics

Forum List

Back
Top