Forum Post: Obama plans to turn anti-Wall Street anger on Mitt Romney, Republicans
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 17, 2011, 7:59 a.m. EST by Flipp
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Obama plans to turn anti-Wall Street anger on Mitt Romney, Republicans By Peter Wallsten,
President Obama and his team have decided to turn public anger at Wall Street into a central tenet of their reelection strategy.
The move comes as the Occupy Wall Street protests gain momentum across the country and as polls show deep public distrust of the nation’s major financial institutions.
And it sets up what strategists see as a potent line of attack against Republican front-runner Mitt Romney, a former investment executive whom Obama aides plan to portray as a wealthy Wall Street sympathizer.
Many Democrats consider Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, the greatest threat to Obama when it comes to wooing centrist independents next year, and Romney this week has begun to present himself as a champion of middle-income Americans.
Obama aides point to recent surveys that show anger at Wall Street spanning ideologies, including a new Washington Post-ABC News poll in which 68 percent of independents and 60 percent of Republicans say they have unfavorable impressions of the big financial institutions.
But the strategy of channeling anti-Wall Street anger carries risks. Many of Obama’s senior advisers have ties to the financial industry — a point that makes Occupy protesters wary of the president and his party.
In recent days, Obama has ramped up his rhetoric. He took the unusual step of targeting an individual company when he attacked Bank of America for its new $5 monthly debit-card fee, calling it “exactly the sort of stuff that folks are frustrated by.” And his campaign and the White House have distributed messages blasting GOP candidates and lawmakers for wanting to repeal Wall Street regulations pushed by Obama and opposing the confirmation of a leader for the consumer protection bureau created as part of the overhaul.
“We intend to make it one of the central elements of the campaign next year,” Obama senior adviser David Plouffe said in an interview. “One of the main elements of the contrast will be that the president passed Wall Street reform and our opponent and the other party want to repeal it.”
“I’m pretty confident 12 months from now, as people make the decision about who to go vote for, the gut check is going to be about, ‘Who would make decisions more about helping my life than Wall Street?’ ” Plouffe added.
Whatever happens we will NOT be a tool for any political party.
Well said...
This will backfire on Obama if he tries to hijack the Occupy movements. That being said, The occupy movements better get their act together and get a message out there, one that all the Occupy movements support. Once the professional activists move in, they will do so in a very well planned out and orchestrated manor. The Occupy movements will not be able to withstand it.
I think the easiest message is : End Corporate Welfare. No more bailouts, no more favors.
The message from the start was End the corruption of the one 1%. Early on this message seemed to be more specifically about ending the corruption of our government and Wall Street.
My personal opinion, if that message isn't shouted loud and clear and soon... The Occupy movements will get hijacked. Here in Chicago, the Occupy movement is an embarrassment to not only the occupy movements in general but to the city of Chicago itself. This is a tough but laid back and hard working town. We have the Socialist Workers Party hijacking the movement here. The thought of socialism in Chicago... Ya, not going to go over very well. End the corruption, you would have the entire city on your side. We are no strangers to corrupt politicians.
Right - a lot of people are making their pet issues heard but that isn't going to fly with the 99%.
I support the elimination of the Federal Reserve for example and while I am happy to talk about it I know the vast majority of people aren't ready for anything nearly so complex a look into our system.
We need broad support and a simple message. Anything other than that and we will get co-opted like the Tea Party did and well paid faces will be speaking for us while the co-opted creation grows to the point where if we speak out we would be dismissed as part of Occupy because we aren't toeing the message the media has of us.
I am for ending the fed also, but there are a lot of different meanings to end the fed. It all depends on your political views. With out getting into it, most people would be all for nationalizing the fed or taking it out of the hands of the private banks. Ending it completely, that's is a much bigger goal that not many people support.
Anyway, It looks like we agree on getting a message out there. I was all for letting this grow on it's own but i can see all the outsiders looking for their way in and how to take this over. If we wait to much longer, one of them will be able to.
No more government involved in Business
I'd love to see a totally deregulated market but that is an issue 99% wouldn't agree with.
I fear for the future of America.. With businesses going the way they are, and American's disgruntled they way they are, I forsee a Civil war. Not over Politics, not over illegal immigrants, not over Government control. But of Rich vs. poor.
There are too many people involved, and all it takes is one hot head to "assisinate Archduke Ferdinand" to be the instigator of a major war in the USA.
If trends do not stop now, I forsee the following:
A class war - Socialism over dominating our Republic.
Federal Mexican invasion to take back land from America as we are too busy fighting our own internal issues, to be looking out for them below.
Massive World-wide upheaval of Class warfare. A war that will eventualy (because all the 99% seem to hate Jews) be war on Israel, which is prophesied in the Bible, and bring about World destruction.
Prove me wrong.. Whether or not you want this to be peaceful, it WILL NOT end up that way in the end.
I think it can end peacefully but I am preparing if it will not.
So many people have no idea about economics and just state anger and envy at others who have more and operate under the idea that because someone has more than you that they owe you something.
If civil war does come those people will be killed off or they will learn to work in order to survive - in either case they are gone.
Socialism will never take root in this nation through violence - it has to work insidiously as it has over the last 100 years. However its infection is now causing the problem that the uninformed are blaming on capitalism. This last bubble was caused by government intervention in the market (by giving the Fed interest rate and monetary monopoly over our currency and by creating incentive for extremely high risk with Fannie and Freddie). How many people on this forum know that - 8%? And this is of the politically active people. It's pathetic to be honest. If the ignorant revolt they will destroy what quality of life we have and die (literally) in order to do it.
What they do not understand, is that those with the money, control the military.. The government will back the industries, even if Obama does not.
The republican and the democrats can try to influence the movement as much they will it wont work. We know they have all been bribed by wall street they sold the country and there soul for money..
Justice, freedom and democracy can never be defeated
Tea party echoes
The situation mirrors the choice Republican Party officials confronted in 2009 as the tea party movement found its footing and began challenging establishment figures in the GOP hierarchy. Over time, a series of establishment groups such as FreedomWorks began coordinating with the activists, and the tea party insurgency began to more closely resemble the energized GOP base.
Liberal activists, though, see the Occupy groups as a potentially more unwieldy phenomenon resistant to traditional politics and resentful of the Democratic Party’s reliance on corporate money.
That distrust was evident at an Atlanta demonstration last week, when Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a legendary protester in his own right, was denied the chance to speak. A video of the incident, in which Lewis looks on uncomfortably as activists rise to debate whether allowing a congressman to speak violates the spirit of the protest, became an Internet sensation.
Other disputes have been raging online and in person at demonstration sites across the country. At Occupy D.C., the McPherson Square encampment inspired by Occupy Wall Street, a shouting match erupted this week when a woman describing herself as a longtime Democratic campaign worker encouraged the young protesters to express their concerns by voting, only to be told that voting was not enough.
An Obama strategist from Florida, Steve Schale, posted on his Facebook page that “clamoring for change is hollow unless you vote.” He linked to an image from the liberal Think Progress blog calling on activists to “Occupy the Polls.”
A former Obama volunteer from central Florida, Madison Paige, retorted on Schale’s page that voting alone could not fix the system, saying, “We have to be willing to do the hardest work — and that means taking a look in the mirror when necessary.”
How demonstrators channel their activism could depend on what they see and hear from Obama in the coming months — meaning the protests present opportunities and perils for the president as he starts to strike a more populist tone on the campaign trail.
“It’s not a danger — if [Obama] handles it properly,” said Steve Hildebrand, an architect of Obama’s 2008 grass-roots organization who is not affiliated with the reelection effort. “I would encourage him to carefully listen to the people who are passionately protesting Wall Street, big corporations and CEO pay.”
Obama and his aides have been cautious in discussing the demonstrations. The president said last week that the protesters were “giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works.”
But Obama also defended his support for bailing out distressed banks after the 2008 financial crisis, saying he “used up a lot of political capital, and I’ve got the dings and bruises to prove it, in order to make sure that we prevented a financial meltdown and that banks stayed afloat.”
Obama and his campaign are now ramping up efforts to portray the Wall Street overhaul he signed last year as a key rallying point. A campaign e-mail sent last week — as the demonstrations gained momentum — urged supporters to pressure the Senate to confirm former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created as part of the law.
“The goal of this campaign — and this President — is to make sure people who work hard and play by the rules get a fair shake, whether that means being able to get a loan to buy a house and send your kid to college, or not having to go bankrupt when you get sick,” the e-mail said.
Polls suggest that pressing such issues and going after the banks could be a winner, both with liberals and centrists. But it could also become uncomfortable next year — particularly if Obama continues to single out institutions such as Bank of America.
His party will hold its convention next year in Charlotte, a major banking city known nationally as the firm’s corporate home town.
Polling analyst Scott Clement contributed to this report. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/e... [1]
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obama-plans-to-turn-anti-wall-street-anger-on-mitt-romney-republicans/2011/10/14/gIQAZfiwkL_
GOP stance
Romney, no doubt anticipating the White House’s new attack line, sought to show solidarity with the demonstrators during this week’s GOP candidates debate.
“The reason you’re seeing protests . . . is middle-income Americans are having a hard time making ends meet,” he said.
GOP leaders say the Wall Street law is government overreach, and Romney’s economic plan calls for replacing it with a “streamlined regulatory framework.”
Obama has tried this line of attack before, railing in 2009 against “fat-cat bankers” who he accused of taking excessive bonuses in the wake of the financial meltdown. But after complaints from Democrats on Wall Street and business leaders, the president has spent much of the past year courting companies — even hiring a new chief of staff, William Daley, from the banking industry.
And many on the left have attacked Obama and his administration for its ties to Wall Street, arguing that the financial regulatory overhaul fell far short of an industry makeover that many critics believed necessary.
Much of his top economic team has roots in the financial services industry, and in recent months Daley and top campaign aides have devoted much of their time improving the relationship with big-dollar donors on Wall Street.
That relationship helps explain the brewing tensions between Democratic officials and the Occupy Wall Street protests. The growing movement is adding new energy to a disaffected left that the party has been trying to excite — but it is largely separate from traditional party institutions.
“The fact that Obama has been so close to Wall Street makes this tough going for him,” said Van Jones, a longtime liberal organizer and former Obama aide.