Obama's burden: a new type of corporate-money-backed liberal (NPR)

[chimpymustgo]

Obama's burden

Commentator Marcellus Andrews sees Barak Obama as a new type of corporate-money-backed liberal — and fears that power and wealth might corrupt the beloved senator.

KAI RYSSDAL: This month's elections are just three weeks old, but already polls are being taken for the next one. Quinnipiac University published a survey today. Kind of a political popularity contest. In order, Americans ranked New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain in their top three.

Senator Obama has been getting all kinds of press as a possible presidential or vice presidential contender. Both good and bad. He's had his share of puff pieces. And of critical stories about his rapid rise into Washington's system of institutionalized influence-peddling. Commentator and economist Marcellus Andrews says that's just the price of power.


MARCELLUS ANDREWS: Barak Obama is something new: a leading black liberal finding a way to square business needs with the needs of ordinary people.

The new political game is about corporate players coming to liberal statesmen out of need.

Politics is owned by capital in this country. But capital has come to Obama because, believe it or not, big business is in a jam that liberals have to fix.

Take health care. High cost health care makes it hard for U.S. business to compete in the global marketplace. In turn, U.S. business either cuts health-care benefits or squeezes our pay.

Conservatives saw this as a nasty fact of life that we just have to live with. But people don't want to live with these facts anymore, so they voted in liberals of Obama's ilk to fix this mess.

Someone like Obama wants to be a big player in meeting the needs of both people and business at the same time. But for Obama to become a player in national politics, and buy all those TV ads he'll need, he needs corporate money.

-snip-

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/11/27/PM200611277.html

[Vincardog]

1. There is no such thing as a corporate-money-backed liberal

The DLC and NeoConvicts place meeting the needs of business above the needs of people.

[1932]

3. ...and this opinion piece doesn't do much to prove that Obama is one.

Follow the link and read it. It just speculates that, in order to win the presidency, Obama will have to take corporate money. It doesn't say that he's doing it now, and it doesn't mention that the of the two Democrats on the ticket in 2004, one never took corporate money, and the other didn't take any in '03-'04. So, not only is the premise not entirely plausible, it's doesn't even establish a foundation suggesting that Obama would even embark on this route.

[Solo_in_MD]

2. Too Late

Commentator Marcellus Andrews sees Barak Obama as a new type of corporate-money-backed liberal — and fears that power and wealth might corrupt the beloved senator.


He was raised with wealth and privledge...his liberal credentials are already suspect, and rightly so

[elehhhhna]

4. I do not trust this man. The MSM shills for him. He is not what he seems.