BuzzFeed tells us
that the most liberal grass-roots supporters of Obama, the kind of
small donors who eagerly donated 200 bucks to the senator from Illinois
in 2008, aren’t ponying up the cash this year.
Maybe they should mull over the deeper meaning of the recent Politico headline:
“Wall Street’s Vote: Romney by a Landslide.”
Financial
sector donations to Romney and his super PAC currently total $37.1
million. To Obama — $4.8 million. A significant proportion of the cash
is coming from moguls who supported Obama in 2008.
A sample:
Ken
Griffin, founder of the Chicago-based hedge fund Citadel, has accused
Obama of engaging in “class warfare” and gave $2,500 to Romney’s
campaign, plus nearly $1.1 million to the pro-Romney super PAC Restore
Our Future. But in 2008, Griffin donated the maximum $4,600 to Obama’s
campaign and helped raise another $50,000 to $100,000.
Let’s
get this straight. Obama continued George W. Bush’s bailout of the
financial sector, has failed to prosecute any Wall Street executives for
crimes related to the financial crisis, extended Bush’s tax cuts for
the wealthy, passed an extremely mild piece of bank reform legislation
and let the banks get away with murder on the housing/foreclosure
crisis. But he also said a few mean things about Wall Street fat cats,
and he supports,
in theory, higher taxes for the rich. CLASS WARFARE!
Liberal
disappointment in Obama is easy to understand. He didn’t nationalize
the banks; he didn’t push for a public option in healthcare; he
authorizes drones to murder from the sky; et cetera. He has not
transformed America as so many people apparently hoped he would. We can
argue about how much he ever could have achieved, given the opposition
of Republicans, but that’s all moot. He’s not inspiring the same level
of excitement in 2012 as he did in 2008 and there are good reasons for
that.
But still: Money talks. And apparently,
any regulation is too much for Wall Street. And
any
suggestion of a more equitable distribution of wealth in the U.S. is
verboten. If there’s any question about who Wall Street thinks would
better serve its interests in the White House, the campaign finance
numbers settle it, once and for all.
The New York Times reports
that in May, Romney and his backers raised $76.8 million — $17 million
more than Obama. Obama is getting especially clobbered in super PAC
contributions : On Tuesday morning, the Wall Street Journal reported
that casino magnate
Sheldon Adelson contributed another $10 million to the Romney-affilated super Pac Restore Our Future.
The
funding disparity, reports the Times, has pushed Obama to spend more
time fundraising than any previous incumbent president, which has
encouraged Republicans to make mean comments about how he should be
concentrating on governing, rather than attending $40,000-a-plate
star-studded dinners. Not only is this unkind, but it’s also deliciously
perverse. Republican presidents appointed the Supreme Court justices
who opened the floodgates for corporate cash to swamp the political
process. Now they mock a Democratic president for spending far too much
of his time begging for money — even as one of the key drivers of
Obama’s desperation is the fact that most of that new corporate cash is
going to the GOP’s candidate.
Wall Street’s candidate, Romney, can
be counted on to appoint more Supreme Court justices dedicated to the
proposition that government should not interfere with corporate
influence over politics. Numbers don’t lie.
is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21.
No comments:
Post a Comment