The attacks on Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker (D) by the more vitriolic liberal commentators for what he said about Bain Capital on this past Sunday’s “Meet the Press” are just as indefensible as the Republican Party’s cynical and dishonest attempt to exploit and distort what the mayor actually said during the program. – Cory Booker Got It Right, by Lanny Davis
JOE LIEBERMAN’S MAN pipes up to join what is a growing number of Democrats slamming Obama’s reelection efforts from the right as they target Mitt Romney on Bain Capital. If only there had been this strong a campaign launched on “Meet the Press” from the “left,” though we all know the Sunday shows shrink from offering progressives an equal time option to make the case against Obama, that is, if there was a campaign on the left to take on Pres. Obama on economics as strongly. This all comes the day Mitt Romney is unleashing his “Day One” general election ad that is scheduled to hit North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, and Virginia today.
Cory & company don’t like Obama’s Bain ads, which Davis calls “misleading,” as did Rattner in his weirdly defensive op-ed. It comes as Pres. Obama loses 42% of the Democratic vote in Kentucky and Arkansas, while two headline Democratic candidates, Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota and Ron Barber, who is competing for Gabrielle Giffords’ seat, also distance themselves from Obama.
The Cory Booker faction represents one of the main differences between Democratic and Republican campaign efforts. Democrats like Booker, Ford, Rattner and now Davis are squeamish about attack ads that go for the jugular, while Republicans win elections through them, because truth isn’t important in negative attacks. Obama’s team knows this well and has been utilizing the same tactics since Barack Obama came on the scene.
Pres. Obama’s problem is that he’s pushed the Booker-Ford-Rattner-Davis soft ball, apolitical and bipartisan Wall Street approach for years, while utilizing the Karl Rove style evisceration of his opponent under the radar. Now the Obama-Axelrod-Plouffe contingent are being hoisted on their own kumbaya petard.
Many of you may remember a column I did back in January at the height of the Republican primaries when the 30-minute video came out from the Gingrich people attacking Mitt Romney on Bain Capital. Here’s part of what I wrote, which is instructive, because I utilized Steve Rattner’s defense of Bain to prove my points, which are further emphasized as being correct through Cory Booker, Harold Ford and Lanny David:
The caterwauling over Mitt Romney tapping the core of American capitalism for his own benefit is rooted in partisanship and doesn’t address the wider reality, which is that there are hundreds of Mitt Romneys in this country, many of whom got the Bush tax cut extensions, which Pres. Obama gladly gave and never really mounted a nationwide fight against. If you truly understand the calamity facing our middle class there is no way morally or in good conscience you could possibly back down from this fight, turning it into a war if you have to. Yes, a class war, but when Democrats hail compromise and gut Dodd-Frank or go along to keep things moving how innocent are they for watching what’s developed under their own backers and bundlers?
Using Steve Rattner’s defense of Mr. Romney and Bain Capital as an example, what are Democratic venture capitalists and heads of holding companies and investment bankers supposed to do in the shadow of this damning video that reveals the sausage making that is our economic system? As Rattner reveals, Democrats in his class can feel his pain and you can bet they’re just glad it’s Romney and not them.
That Obama reelect will trumpet the video and all of its parts in the general election season, freaking out their own Democratic version of the Mitt Romney class, is wrought with irony.
That freak out is what we’re watching right now.
Democrats are very willing to ignore the Washington Post report that Pres. Obama made more from Wall Street in his first term than George W. Bush did in eight years.
The largest banks are larger than they were when Obama took office and are nearing the level of profits they were making before the depths of the financial crisis in 2008, according to government data. Wall Street firms — independent companies and the securities-trading arms of banks — are doing even better. They earned more in the first 2 1/2 years of the Obama administration than they did during the eight years of the George W. Bush administration, industry data show.
What Obama reelect has run up against is their marketing versus reality, which the Cory Booker contingent represents, something that is foundational in both the Democratic and Republican parties.
It just might be that insider and elite Democrats know the truth and are incensed by the hypocrisy of team Obama because they know they can’t get elected without their Wall Street and corporate backers.
Coming from an Administration that opened the White House to Goldman Sachs, protected big banks, and also extended the Bush tax cuts after being politically pummeled in 2010, though they couldn’t bring themselves to mount an economic case the entirety of Obama’s first term, it’s all a bit much for team Booker. A group of Democrats who are attacking Obama from even further right than he is, with the next big move likely to come after Obama’s elected in the form of a “grand bargain” on entitlements, with which the Cory Booker and the Democratic corporate contingent likely agrees.
Former Pres. Bill Clinton is their cover.
“Our party’s problem is, we are always reluctant to give up the gains of the past to create the future,” Bill Clinton told the audience at the Pete Peterson’s fiscal summit. “Democrats are reluctant to commit to longer-term health-care savings; they don’t want to touch Social Security.” [TM]
As I’ve said before in response to corporate politicians wherever they reside, when Democrats and Republicans start reining in the Pentagon and admitting we need to curtail our military misadventurism in places now secure, I’ll analyze the sense in changing the U.S. entitlement structure. If we start focusing instead on economic models for populations instead of military intervention, aided by Special Force ops, while beginning with rescinding all the Bush tax cuts, including for the middle class, instead of the ridiculous notion of making them permanent, plus raising the taxable income for Social Security, then I’ll be willing to deal on entitlement “reforms.”
Obama’s kumbaya is coming back to bite him through Democrats employing Barack Obama’s famous apolitical big bank and big corporation embrace.
Mitt Romney is a symptom of the American political system, but as I wrote in January when Pres. Obama’s own car czar, Steve Rattner, was the first to come to Mitt Romney and Bain’s defense, emphasized through the very popular Cory Booker, Democrats have a mirror image of corporate Mittism inside their own ranks and everybody knows it.
Ask Cory, Harold, Lanny or Steve, they’ll tell you all about it, with a lot of people behind them agreeing, including, I would bet just about anything on it, former Pres. Bill Clinton, too.
It’s why the contest of Obama vs. Romney is perfect and represents exactly what American politics is today: two Wall Street, right leaning political parties bankrolled by the 1% Wall Street corporate crowd, while the American public screams at the TV, because more and more people don’t consider either of these two men or political parties an actual “choice.”
Lanny Davis is trashing the President! Next your gonna write that the earth is round and the sun rises in the east and sets in the west!
There’s false equivalency and then there’s false equivalency. THIS my friends: IS NOT FALSE EQUIVALENCY!
While many talk about each side and how bad/good they are, we always come back to Wall Street. And it’s quite uncomfortable to a sizable amount of people that Congressional Democrats and Republicans (and those that reach the Office of the Presidency) march lock step to the almighty Wall Street Lords. Wall Street has two hands and they each have a Spell of Funding and Domination over them. The Left hand for the Donkey and the Right Hand for the elephant. It is what it is.
The Cory Booker faction wants their guy elected but…uh…see…uh… “he gotta shut it up a bit about Wall Street cause my pockets can’t abide being light”.
Ya gotta love these two Harvard Boys: Obama and Romney.
“Ya gotta love these two Harvard Boys: Obama and Romney. Except graduating Harvard these two guy’s life stories couldn’t be more different. Obama was born to a poor unmarried teenage mother, Romney was born into a wealthy two parent home. Obama and his mother were on food stamps for a year when he was growing up, Romney lived in a mansion with servants and nannies. Obama needed loans and grants to go to college, Romney’s dad, an auto executive paid for his tuition out of pocket. Saying these two men are the same is absurd!
As for the Lanny Davis anti-Obama broadside. Democrats stabbing other Democrats in the back is nothing new, it happened before President Obama came along and it will continue to happen after he is gone.
For the record, that comment you made in that other thread about President Obama openly supporting marriage equality is working out the way he wanted. It would seem you were a little wrong. Check it!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/23/black-shift-on-gay-marriage_n_1540160.html
I’ll concede the point concerning black folks. But black folks aren’t going to be the reason Obama wins or loses. He has the majority (white folks) and a large minority (Hispanics) to woo as well. Now if there were 100+ million of we black folks, then it would be quite different. LOL
The vast majority of black folks that voted for Obama in ’08 will vote for him again in ’12. On urban radio, you’ll hear black folks having issues with Obama’s handling of jobs and such, but that won’t cause as mass exodus to to Romney. “If that happened, then Romney is the Chosen One and Golden Child all in one.” – Quote from my father.
“He has the majority (white folks) and a large minority (Hispanics) to woo as well.” President Obama is beating Romney 2-1 among Hispanics and is getting the standard 40% that every Dem gets among non-hispanic whites!
I have to wonder if a lot of this doesn’t go back to the primary and the split in the party that never has been really reconciled.
Could be Ga6thDem. And the only way it could have been resolved (or start a real healing process) is if Obama picked ol’ Hillary as his VP. My predominately Democratic family was SOOO split between Barack and Hillary that it caused some food fights at the BBQ. LOL!
But it is what it is now. I’m interested on how these debates are going to play out.
Could be about that schism that has truly never healed except between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (they’re not the best of friends and don’t have to be but imho, whatever tension there was between them has been settled). However, not all of those criticizing the Obama Administration about that imo fair political ad regarding Bain and Romney did not all support Hillary Clinton in the ’08 primary. Governor Deval Patrick was an Obama supporter and early one at that: he endorsed Obama in October 2007 (I just looked it up to make sure). So, while it looks like a primary duck, it may not be one.
IMO, it’s more of what many have said since Booker squealed on MTP, that these people are just saying what is true while not coming out and saying it in words: they (and almost all politicians) cannot survive or climb up the political ladder without Wall St et al support regardless of all of the hemming and hawing and grovelling (to qualify what they said which is BS: the hemming and hawing I mean) being done now by Booker et al.
Lanny Davis is good, perhaps the best at what he does. Prominent democrats who have spoke out against the newest Obama blunder are doing him and his campaign a huge favor. Supporters tell you what you want to hear. Good friends tell you what you need to hear. If there was a way to put a shine on the recent shizz that Obama said about Romney, Lanny Davis would be the person who would know how to do it.
You think Lanny Davis is a good friend of President Obama? Mr. Davis is just another Hillary loyalist who has yet to get over it!
evidence please? words matter
Evidence? Lanny Davis is a Clinton loyalist! Are you denying that?
Mr. Davis is just another Hillary loyalist who has yet to get over it!
evidence please; words matter
Newest Obama blunder? I know exactly what you mean. After this President blundered his way into killing Bin Laden, overthrowing Colonel Gaddafi, rescuing American hostages from Somali pirates, recusing the auto industry and naming two women to the Supreme Court what did you expect?
a pony?
LOL! That’s funny!
LOL!!!
I always thought that the US Military did those things. I was referring to the inept handling of the events in Syria, failure of his party to draft or pass a budget, and refusal to prosecute a single Wall Street criminal.
Of course, all the events I mentioned went well so your take is Obama had nothing to do with it. However the situation unfolding (that hasn’t reached a conclusion) in Syria is all his fault.
The way the United States is handling the situation in Syria is his fault. Who else is responsible? The doctor who helped us identify bin laden is in prison, who do you blame for that? I guess it is the doctor’s fault for thinking President Obama would take care of him. What a lousy message to send to people who risks their lives and the lives of their families to help fight the war on terror. I hear the democrats cry and moan aabout the “Paul Ryan Budget”. The democrats have not drafted a budget proposal in years, even when they still had a super majority. They attack a budget the GOP makes and at the same time appear to be incapable of presenting their own budget. This is not entirely President Obama’s fault, although it shows poor leadership. The evidence of what we are doing in Syria is supporting al-quaeda and other terror groups. I know nothing good will come of that.
I have read here on more than one occasion how excited the Democrats were about the thought of Obama running against Romney! They would say that Team Obama would chew him up and spit him out. It wouldn’t even be a contest..
Is everyone still thinking that? I don’t either.
I think we’re going to have to wait until the next election before the parties begin to listen to the people. The question is, can we survive 4 more years.
Good column Taylor!
The fundamental problem is one that few Democrats want to discuss which is that situations like this make it crystal clear that the Democrats, in their own way, are every bit as corrupt and beholden to the crooks who run Wall Street as the Republicans are. Our professional middle of the road/corporate Democrats who have run our party now for over 25 years don’t give a rat’s ass about the common people, are completely and totally the pawns of the rich and powerful and they are selling us out with their each and every “bipartisan” compromise. We will continue to see obscene situations where a fake Democratic President is criticized by fake Democrats who either continue to benefit from the money of Wall Street as office holders or as consultants. Either way they do not even try to convince anyone they represent the people’s interests and go straight to the openly corrupt position of supporting anything and everything the thieves of Wall Street ever wanted.
I’d like to propose a conspiracy theory: these guys, some of whom (Deval Patrick and, I think Cory Booker) are playing to Obama’s right so he can reclaim the “progressive” mantle and get all his fervent supporters back to filling stadiums. Whaddaya think?
I think they are all tto self interested to act in an organized fashion.
Lake Lady-Ding! Ding!! Ding!!!
Let me add another DING DING DING! LOL
Well that’s true, Lake Lady, but let’s remember, once you get to a certain level in politics, it doesn’t much matter about getting re-elected, it’s about your employment prospects when your political career is done. Why do you think Bill Clinton promoted financial deregulation? The same reason Obama has been soft on the banks. Clinton is now worth an estimated $80 million, and he gets six figure speaking fees from corporate/ elite organizations. Easy money that. You think Obama doesn’t know this? Of course he does, and he, too looks forward to those sorts of paydays whenever he is done at the White House. Same reason why Cory Booker won’t take on private equity, he hopes it will pay his bills one day. And the pity is, everyone knows about this type of corruption and it is totally legal.
And much as I admire Hilary’s groundbreaking candidacy, I have to assume she is party to this corruption too. She’d hardly do anything at State to jeopardize her family’s income.
As it says in this link, if you take on the banks, you’d better win, or you end up like Eliot Spitzer. Obama’s game (softball “attacks” on the banks, but no jail terms) makes perfect sense for Obama. http://bit.ly/KbjE3V
What Lake Lady said, plus, this is who these people are. Read about Cory Booker and the mystery of why financial firms would cough up half a million dollars so he could run Newark becomes clear.
This is what they are – children of privilege who naturally assume that they and the people they know should be the ones who benefit from the system. Once you absorb that idea, all of this becomes abundantly clear.
And, a ding ding from me about what Lakelady said.
The Democrats are not very good strategists. They are not ruthless and they are not quick on their feet. And to make matters even worse they are not street smart. Right now, they have the tools on hand to fix this problem and shut everyone up for good, but they refuse to anticipate, and they hate the taste sight of smell of jugular blood.
They have an ad which uses vignettes from the primaries of Gingrich, Perry, Palin, Santorum et al, all denigrating the evils of “vulture capitalism”. IMO what they should do (should have done) is to clean up or embellish this ad since the current version looks like a rough-cut, or a YouTube Video, and run the heck out of it. That should be the primary Bain ad, and it should be rotated with the “Workers”.
Let’s see what Democratic Traitors say when the words come from the mouths Romney’s Republican allies.
They are plenty ruthless. It’s just that their ruthlessness has nothing to do with advancing an agenda we want. They’re about themselves, and occasionally they’re about other Democrats. There are exceptions to that rule, of course, but they’re slowly being purged one way or another.
I would like to agree with Ramsgate and I do on a macro level but on the micro level of “insiders” I see no lack of ruthlessness. They were pretty darn ruthless with HRC.Both the Obama campaign and Dem elite seemed to have no trouble with being ruthless in ’08. The cats Taylor is writing about in this piece seem to have no trouble cutting their president off at the knees.
The Dem elite bought a “pig in a poke” with Obama.They thought he would bring them all money and ensure the youth vote forever. I don’t think they counted on his learning disability in the area of smoozing and Party Leadership.
I do agree that Obama should pound the Bain theme. I really believe that one of his big problems is the inability to form relationships in the Party.He has no “bank” of favors or threats or just plain human relations. He appears to be basically a loner with huge written and spoken language skills. Too bad he did not embark on a writing career.
On the Bain thing, I must disagree. What all these Democratic politicians oozing out of the woodwork to defend Bain demonstrates to me is just how hypocritical this campaign is. The only plus I can see is that it goes after Romney’s supposed strength – his ability as a “job creator”. Still, in most other respects, this looks like a potential loser to me.
Of course, I was wondering what all the Swift Boat fuss was about at first. One could have taken that as a way of pointing out how Kerry actually served, and Bush sat out a war he thought was perfectly OK otherwise.
On Barack Obama the politician, though, I think you’re dead on. Not too surprising, I suppose, given your recent career. He doesn’t seem to have much of a network, mostly he seems to have patrons. That’s not a good thing. He reminds me of Jimmy Carter as President, minus Carter’s ethical center.
The reason why The Republicans and Obama’s supposed allies are so up in arms and flustered about Bain is because they know it works. It is damned effective. It is Romney’s Achille’s heel. It is the one thing that has been very effectively used against him in every political campaign that he ran. If you think it’s playing to his strength, well then, this is right out of Karl Rove’s playbook. Attack your opponent’s greatest strength. The Republicans also know that if they keep the pressure on, precedent has shown Obama is likely to cave and stop the campaign.
As I mentioned, I don’t always see these things the way other Americans do. Still, I think I’m closer ideologically to those who should be the Obama campaign’s target audience, and that’s the thought that occurs to me.
Ha! You are right smoozing comes very naturally to me. It is out of a geniune interest in people and a love of hearing their stories.So many people who voted for me would be shocked at what a blazing liberal I am. I don’t keep it a secret and have ongoing arguments with some of my closeset supporters but on my level things are thankfully non partisan.
I hear what you are saying about the Bain thing and the Obama team is running a very hypocrical campaign no doubt.. On the other hand the American people need to learn how how system works, as Taylor calls it the sausage “making” part of capitalism.
My problem with Bain Capital is as follows: They own and therefore are responsible for the abuse and atrocities of the Aspen Education Group.
Aspen Education Group, Inc. was formed in December 1997 as a spin-off of College Health Enterprises. In 1998, Aspen was reported to have annual revenues of $28 million. For 2006, it projected revenue of $150 million.[2] In late 2006, Bain Capital acquired Aspen Education Group for $300 million.
The Aspen Education Group is the target of criticism related to the lack of government regulation of the industry, the large revenues the programs generate, and the charge that the company is taking advantage of parents in a desperate situation.It has also been criticized for shoddy marketing practices and for closing programs without sufficient regard for the harm done to students whose promised services were being disrupted.
The Wellspring diet has been criticized by some lay observers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspen_Education_Group#Closed
Above are excerpts from their wikipedia page.
The reality is the Aspen Eduction Groups has been responsible for the abuse and in some cases death of children. Mitt Romney has strong ties to people connected to child abuse in the form of institutional abuse. Adults have also been abused in intitutions that were run or owned by people connected to Mitt Romney.
Recovering partisans, my ass.
Most of you are just as partisan as any right winger out there, however, the right wingers actually understand bloggers are not players unless you convert your pseudonyms to real names and addresses, add in 4 personal checks each that sum up to $48,300 allocated to the allowed limit for each, rubber band it all together and send it in.
Once that is done, maybe someone will start listening to your campaign strategy thoughts….
You must not know any bloggers to be saying that. The Republican ones around here sure think they are “players”
Hmmm..those who extol the virtues of shedding anonymity, sometimes have an ulterior motive for S.H.I.T—Silencing.Harassing.Intimidating.Terrorizing.
LOL, CO…
I think you can recover from being solely in a camp no matter what they do. But you can still lean in a certain direction. My family roots of civil rights activism and my own former “fringe leftism” has caused me to be more socially liberal. But I’m not about to become a Democrat. And regarding the conservative side, I’m much more a financial conservative. But I’m not about to become a Republican.
And you definitely don’t want to hear my campaign strategy thoughts. I have too much “gotta have entertainment value” in me.
The Two Party Front for the Oligarchy is less and less concerned about the Left. Nothing new in that statement, of course, since lots of people have been talking and writing about this for years. The more obvious it becomes, the less concerned the Duopoly seems. And as long as the “lesser of two evils” argument works, they don’t have much reason to be concerned. They can just keep trading Elected positions, as both parties continue their very obvious and long-running shift further Right.
I read that Nancy Pelosi and some other democrats are closer to a deal with Republicans to keep the tax cuts, if this is true, sadly I believe it. Democrats always go after their own while Republicans except the primary, usually stick together. Taylor hit all the right points and she is right, it seems no one is happy right now with whats happening in Washington. The country is run by Big Bussiness and Wall Street.
Here’s what I think:
1) This was staged…we are in day 5 and people are still talking about BAIN. We all know Americans have a short attention span…This is a reminder…strategically placed on MTP (AKA…Meet the Millionaire Journalist)
2) Mitt Romney is starting to tap dance around the issue of Bain like he’s the Mormon Sammy Davis Jr.
Corey Booker, Larry Davis Haold Ford and Bill and Hillary Clinton are not liberals or progressives on anything but the social issues. They all take campaign contributions from Wall Street investtment banks.Bill Clintin is worst, sinceit was he and his Treasury Secretary who led the fight that repealed the New Deal Glass-Seagall Act, a law that put a stone wall between commercial banks and investement banks that led to the de-regulation of Wall Street that caused the gfobal finincial collapse in 2008.
Barack Obama also took campaign contributions from Wall Street as do all Presidential candidates of both parties. The differnce is in actions taken. The Obama adminstration led house and senate Democrats into passing the Dodd-Franks Act putting more regulation on Wall Street invewstment firms. The donation from Wall Street to Obama has dried up and Wall Street is calling for the repeal of Dodd-Franks and even more de-regulation of Wall Street.
The Obama campaign has to ignore the Wall Street Demorats (Booker, Ford, Davis and the Clintons) and make this campaign about growing takover of all leverls of government by the corporate elite. He should and it looks like he will follow the examplae of FDR in his relection campaign of 1936 making the 2012 election a contrast election:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9yoZHs6PsU
Taylor must be taking some well deserved time off.
I’m just not getting how folks see any similarity between Obama and FDR. He’s always been far too risk averse for that. I don’t see a change.
StrideHyde, you’re not alone. There is no similarity. Obama is no FDR. Never was and never will be. I’ve come to the conclusion that the people who continue to “see” Obama as being above the political fray and immune to special interests (and he’s not as his history clearly and consistently shows) are suffering from a lack of common breathable air as they are breathing that rarefied air we breathe when we are in love.
Or, as George Bernard-Shaw wrote: “Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.” Imho, that’s pretty much what’s happening here.
Neither of you will get an argument from me on this point. Beyond the obvious similarities that they are both American Presidents, there’s really not much that they have in common.
I am with StrideHyde, newdealdem1 and Cujy359 on this.