Why Cory Booker and Corporate Friendly Dems Who Fear Attacking Wall Street Are a Big Problem for Dem

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/election2012/155583/why_cory_booker_and_corporate_friendly_dems_who_fear_attacking_wall_street_are_a_big_problem_for_democrats/

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If you needed a reminder that Democrats and Republicans approach presidential elections very differently, the past few days have provided a vivid object lesson. Mitt Romney has made his time leading Bain Capital the centerpiece of his campaign, so Barack Obama's campaign quite naturally decided to attack him on it, a decision that was surely made months ago. They are doing so in both concrete and abstract terms, criticizing Romney for specific moves Bain made involving the firm profiting off companies that went bankrupt, and making the more general argument that a successful career maximizing profit for wealthy investors does not prepare one for the presidency. Then suddenly, the Obama campaign became the target of an unusual amount of criticism from Democrats rising to the defense of the “private equity” industry.

The chorus of scolding certainly demonstrates just how entwined the Democratic party has become with Wall Street and large corporations more generally; when high-ranking Democrats criticize this campaign tactic, they're defending their friends and contributors. But it mostly shows that among Democrats, everybody thinks they ought to be running the presidential campaign. And they aren't afraid to say so.

It started with Newark mayor Cory Booker, who said he was "nauseated" by both sides' attacks, lumping together criticism of Romney's record at Bain with potential attacks on Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright in a bizarre false equivalence. Ex-congressman Harold Ford, who has fashioned a career as a "Fox News Democrat" (i.e. a Democrat whose job it is to come on television and criticize Democrats) and who now works for Merrill Lynch, predictably took to the airwaves to defend Big Finance's honor. Steven Rattner, the Wall Streeter who oversaw the auto bailout for the Obama administration and a former private equity chief himself, offered his own defense of Bain (though he also defended the Obama campaign). Former Pennsylvania governor and DNC chair Ed Rendell called Obama's criticisms "very disappointing." Senators Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Chris Coons (D-DE) said the Obama campaign should stop talking about Bain and move on to other topics. If you're a reporter looking to write a story about Democratic infighting, it won't be hard to find a prominent Democrat who'll give you a quote calling out the Obama campaign.

[kentuck]

1. We have always had wealthy folks in the Democratic Party...

But they never made the decisions for the Party of the People.

[HiPointDem]

2. the democratic party you speak of existed roughly 1933 to 1973. and that was only because

of the humiliation of the business class during the depression, the threat of the ussr, and the influence of communism.

the business/owning class has always been the major influence on both parties. just different segments of the business class. sometimes local v. national, national v. international, manufacturing v. finance, land v. industry, new capital v. established capital, etc.

[FarCenter]

4. The democratic party was badly split during most of that time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Coalition

In the United States, the conservative coalition was an unofficial Congressional coalition bring together the conservative majority of the Republican Party and the conservative, mostly Southern, wing of the Democratic Party. It was dominant in Congress from 1937 to 1963 and remained a political force until the mid 1980s, eventually dying out in the 1990s.

During that period, many of the senior, leadership positions in Congress were held by Democrat Senators and Representatives from the south. Besides being socially conservative, they came from the upper tiers of southern political and business establishment.

Read some of the biographies that you can link to from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_1960

[HiPointDem]

5. and yet it managed to pass a lot of progressive legislation.

[FarCenter]

8. Progressive legislation after 1937?

For example, the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 was passed by a bipartisan coalition over Harry Truman's veto.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act

[HiPointDem]

9. e.g. civil rights era legislation, lbj's great society legislation, nixon's epa legislation, etc.

[TheKentuckian]

3. Ideological opposition isn't being afraid

They essentially believe as the Republicans do, the disagreement is just vehemence and a maybe a matter of degrees.
Calling them afraid is a way to not hold them accountable and make excuses for them selling us down the river while hobnobbing with the wealth and powerful.

[Odin2005]

6. People like Booker are not real Dems, they are RW infiltrators.

Just like the DLC and the Blue Dogs.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. Yet many on DU

think that Prez. Obama is one of these types and thus must be attacking himself at the same time that he attacks the banksters.

[Uncle Joe]

10. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, xchrom.

[Arkana]

11. Rendell and Ford are tools, so is Feinstein,

and Coons comes from Delaware--one of the most high-finance states in the Union. None of this is surprising.

When we start hearing people like Patrick Leahy or John Kerry criticizing Obama we'll know something is wrong.