It’s starting to look that way. Globe:
Donors from big banks are betting on Mitt Romney to defeat President Obama and repeal new restraints on risky, large-scale investments….
The top five donor groups in Romney’s campaign are individuals and political action committees associated with large financial institutions, led by Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, according to information compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group that tracks campaign donations.
By contrast, Obama’s top five contributor groups include individuals and PACs affiliated with high technology giants Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., and the global law firms DLA Piper and Sidley Austin, and do not include those associated with banks. In 2008, financial institutions backed him generously….
Records show that the securities and investment industry has given nearly $20 million to Restore Our Future, the independent super PAC associated with Romney, while it has contributed less than $200,000 to Priorities USA Action, the super PAC associated with Obama.
So that’s the presidential race. And locally, Elizabeth Warren is amping up the Wall Street theme, releasing both radio and TV ads this week. Here they are:
Relatedly, Scott Brown has been taking a bit of heat over his mysterious “New York City finance committee,” which threw him a big-dollar fundraiser recently. His campaign won’t reveal the names of these shadowy characters, and specifically, won’t say whether anyone from the winner of the Most Embarrassing Big Bank of the Month award, JPMorgan Chase, serves on it – although campaign finance records show that Brown has pulled in at least $50,000 from JP Morgan, and that’s just what’s been reported so far. Here’s some amusing commentary, from Mike Deehan’s MASSter list:
Democrats want Scott Brown to give back any money raised with the help of nasty old JP Morgan bankers. Chill out Democrats, it’s JP Morgan. Just give them a couple weeks and they’ll lose it all anyway.
Heh.
Jasiu says
This just shows how important the ground game is going to be again for Democrats this fall, both in-state for the Senate seat and in the battleground states for the White House. If you aren’t involved yet, it is time to figure out your role.
SomervilleTom says
It is boiling down to Wall Street versus everybody else — “Main street” is, in my opinion, too restrictive. Many voters correctly see little difference between the big bank on Wall Street and “Main Street” businesses who dominate their town government.
This election is boiling down to the one percent versus the rest of us. “Austerity” is just another code word for protecting the wealth of the wealthiest one percent, at whatever cost to everybody else.
Not just in America, either — we are watching the same drama unfold in Greece. When the “austerity” that the ruling classes of Europe attempt to impose on the 99% of Greece blows up, those who think our election won’t be affected aren’t paying attention. The German bankers who demand that poor Greek children starve rather than miss an interest payment to the bankers are about to lose far more than just the debt service.
“Austerity” as public policy in a depression doesn’t work. It didn’t work in the US in 1937, it isn’t working in Greece right now, and it won’t work in the US right now. Mitt Romney and the GOP are focusing their campaign on “austerity” at precisely the moment when austerity is wreaking yet another catastrophe on the world’s economy.
SomervilleTom says
One image says all that needs to said:
This is what Mitt Romney thinks will win this election. This is the prescription Germany and France (and the rest of the EU) are attempting to impose on Greece. It is failing in Greece and will similarly fail here. We can only hope that the American voter is smart enough to understand this (Fox News notwithstanding).
This morning’s Globe offers a typical example (emphasis mine):
Who pays the price (in terms of cutbacks in vital government services)? All of us. Who benefits? The one percent.
Will Mitt Romney’s “simpler, smaller, smarter” government be more or less able to restrain abusive Wall Street players like JP Morgan/Chase? Will it be more or less able to protect all of us from predatory banks like Bank of America?
The folks screaming loudest to “cut the spending” are the folks on Wall Street, because they will be the beneficiaries.
I suggest that Election 2012 is shaping up to be Wall Street (and the racists, sexists, homophobes, and all those other right-wing extremists) against the rest of us.
lynne says
They are all high and mighty about the fact that THEIR strong economy isn’t the problem.
But whose banks LENT money to countries in real deficit all those years?? Whose banks are the ones being bailed out with the austerity deals?
One clue: Not Greece’s.
Sure, Greece (and other countries) were sort of cooking the books, but I bet a sharp eye and a bit of research, and the knowledge of basic math, coulda figured it out. But no, the banks blithely handed out their big loans wither-nither and now expect Europe to bail them out, and the average folk to suffer for it.
If you hand out credit like candy, people will accept it. This is why there should be regulations and usury laws.
centralmassdad says
There is zero chance that Greece pays its sovereign debt; the debt was incurred by fraud committed by the government. Germany wants to force them to adopt austerity, and Greece is pushing back.
France, under this new guy, is unlikely to back Merkel any more; rather, it appears he wants to ramp up his government’s spending as well.
Greece has an election next month, and it is at least reasonably likely they reject the program, and have to get off the Euro in a messy fashion. As widely noted, this will be Very Bad Indeed for (i) Portugal; (ii) Ireland; (iii) Spain; and (iv) Italy. If things spin out of control in June, a huge negative impact on our economy will be felt by fall, if not sooner.
This strikes me as, at present, the largest threat to Obama’s re-election, by far.
whosmindingdemint says
HaHa