Surprise! Wall Street casts its lot with the GOP
Politico reminds us all where the banksters are putting their cash these days ….
Wall Street — the target of Occupy protests nationwide — has swung firmly back to the GOP in 2012 after supporting then-Sen. Barack Obama over Sen. John McCain in the 2008 campaign. Obama outraised McCain on Wall Street by nearly 2 to 1, $15.7 million to $9.2 million.
Despite a large overall fundraising advantage, Obama has raised just $5.1 million from the finance, insurance and real estate sectors so far this cycle compared with $12.4 million for Mitt Romney’s campaign, according to Sheila Krumholz, executive director of (the Center for Responsive Politics).
“The financial industry overall, cycle after cycle, is always a No. 1 source of campaign funds. It is even more so in 2012. It is head and shoulders above any other industry,” Krumholz said. “And Romney has a large lead, which is extraordinary given that Obama has such a large lead in total receipts.”
…. The gap for Romney, a former private-equity executive and founder of Bain Capital, is even larger when his super PAC — Restore our Future — is included. Restore our Future, which can raise unlimited sums from individuals and organizations, had hauled in $30.1 million by the end of last year.
I guess the hedge-fund managers want to make sure to keep their “carried-interest” loophole that lets them tax their income as the 15 percent capital-gain rate even when they put no capital at risk.
I guess the Wall Street types want to try to return to the glory days of lax regulation that ended so well in late 2008, with President Bush warning plaintively that “this sucker could go down.”
I guess they’ve forgotten that three years ago to this day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 7850, and is now at 12800, the quickest rebound in American history in the last three years.
And clearly they choose to ignore the fact that the party in which they now invest so heavily now bitterly condemns the policies that made the recovery possible, from the auto bailout and Fed action to the stimulus package and TARP.
Very well.
– Jay Bookman
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© 2012 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
456 comments Add your comment
Keep Up the Good Fight!
February 13th, 2012
8:22 am
It’s not the principles, its the greed.
USinUK
February 13th, 2012
8:23 am
seriously – is anyone surprised?
Normal
February 13th, 2012
8:23 am
Ah yes, Wall Street = greed…ain’t it wonderful? I wish I could ask a rich man, how much is enough?
Peadawg
February 13th, 2012
8:28 am
“Obama has raised just $5.1 million from the finance, insurance and real estate sectors” – Hypocrite much? Aren’t these the same finance, insurance, and real estate sectors that he blasts in every speech he gives?
“$12.4 million for Mitt Romney’s campaign” – Not surprised. Not even a little bit.
Jm
February 13th, 2012
8:28 am
After watching crazy socialized in Greece destroy a country, would u expect them to support socialist Obama? Nope
But O is bought and paid by Wall St too.
Brosephus
February 13th, 2012
8:29 am
So does this mean that we’ll hear the end of the whine about Obama and Wall St? Highly unlikely.
To co-sign w/USinner.. No Sh*t Sherlock!!
USinUK
February 13th, 2012
8:29 am
Normal – as Wallis Simpson said, you can never been too rich or too thin
Finn McCool (Class Warfare = Stopping Rich People from TAKING MORE of OUR MONEY)
February 13th, 2012
8:29 am
If they want return on investment they better target the congressional races.
Jm
February 13th, 2012
8:30 am
Obama’s chief of staff is a wall streeter
Finn McCool (Class Warfare = Stopping Rich People from TAKING MORE of OUR MONEY)
February 13th, 2012
8:31 am
Aren’t these the same finance, insurance, and real estate sectors that he blasts in every speech he gives?
Peadawg is having a problem with how politics works?
Keep Up the Good Fight!
February 13th, 2012
8:33 am
For some of our conned posters that may be confused, making money is not a bad thing. No liberal/Dem is against making money (despite the nonsense and lies posted with the broad brush). Greed from unfair and unlawful acts is a distortion of the market and even “free markets” need regulation and access to information.
We have also seen that many many millionaires and billionaires have come forward and said this country needs to shift an appropriate tax burden onto those who receive its benefits, often disproportionately….. not on a “voluntary” basis but on a consistent applied tax policy.
King of Everything
February 13th, 2012
8:34 am
Capitalism at its best. If Wall Street can buy their own Presidents and Senators, they should. Who has the most toys in the end wins. Let’s see if voters will buy into the propaganda and sound bites or will they also forget that Wall Street left a lot of us under water and we are still there.
Jm
February 13th, 2012
8:34 am
Jacob Lew, citigroup bailout recipient, the biggest mess other than Lehman, now chief of staff in whorehouse
Wall street owns the current president
Hoof Hearted
February 13th, 2012
8:36 am
In the immortal words C. Montgomery Burns (paraphrased), “I would trade it all for just one dollar more.”
Jm
February 13th, 2012
8:37 am
That was supposed to be whorehouse
But I accept autocorrect’s Freudian slip as accurate
Jm
February 13th, 2012
8:39 am
White house dernit
White house
Jm
February 13th, 2012
8:40 am
Obama’s treasury secretary: wall streeter
Jm
February 13th, 2012
8:43 am
“banksters”
Jays just another socialist on the occupy team. Burn the country to the ground jay. Americans will rebuild it for you.
carlosgvv
February 13th, 2012
8:43 am
Big Business will always go where they think the money is. Wall Street went with Obama because they knew he would win. Even though polls show Obama leading Romney, Wall Street greed has grown to the point where they will pour money into Romney’s campaign hoping for a conservative win and even less Govt. regulations. If Romney wins, they will be looking to lie, cheat and steal their way to even more profits with a bought and paid for Govt. that will look the other way.
Mick
February 13th, 2012
8:44 am
Yes, let’s just trust wall street plus the free market invisible hands. Savings & loan bailout in the 80’s, real estate fiasco in the new millenium. Yes, let them drive again so they can finish the job once and for all. The rest of us will be lucky if we can just have a leftover twinkie to eat…
JamVet
February 13th, 2012
8:44 am
At least now the idiotically transparent faux outrage from the right wing’s bankster bootlickers (see the 2nd 8:34) will drop back a notch or two. And the trickle downers can again tell us how these very same men, the ones who funded the socialist BHO and his campaign, are risk takers and winners and that is why they support the capitalist Romney.
Oy, the stupid…
The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door. That’s the only difference. ~Ralph Nader
Regardless, the cons sure do love them a hyper-dysfunctional, bribed government of plutocrats and oligarchs taking care of each other and screwing middle class con families. And as long as they have R’s after their names, they can pretend that everything is going to be just fine.
But I’ve got bad news for the simpletons in the Republisheep Party. – it won’t matter.
John McCain II is gonna be just another footnote in BHO’s biography…
Peter
February 13th, 2012
8:47 am
The super rich and the GOP is a mirror of each other…. Greed is good, and me is first !
barking frog
February 13th, 2012
8:51 am
Nearly all the money donated to both parties winds up in
the pockets of TV and Advertising companies. A good
reason we need Truth in Advertising legislation but
politicians would probably exempt themselves.
N-GA
February 13th, 2012
8:51 am
Let’s go back to the early days of capitalism….the Vanderbilts, the JP Morgans, the Rockefellers, the Carnegies….
Let’s go back to strike busters and child labor. And let’s not forget the “Company Store”, lock-outs, low wages and no benefits. And let’s get rid of all government oversight. Laissez faire must be the order of the day. Let corporations pollute to their hearts content. After all, clean air and water erode profits!
Capitalism is perfect….it corrects itself via supply and demand. Then Socialism must be wrong because it places conditions on Capitalism.
Whew! Sarcasm can be painful!
ByteMe
February 13th, 2012
8:55 am
Jay, you’re looking at the money you can see, not the money you can’t see. The SuperPACs are where all the big money is going these days, not as much to the campaigns, which is more regulated in how they have to spend and account for the money.
carlosgvv
February 13th, 2012
8:56 am
N-GA
You may think that’s sarcasm but it seems frightningly clear that is the real long-term goal of Big Business. These greed obsessed people will NEVER stop trying to achieve these goals anyway they can.
Jm
February 13th, 2012
9:00 am
Jay you may find America casts it’s lot with the GOP
Don’t be surprised
bob
February 13th, 2012
9:00 am
Jay, why does the left play this game ? The democrat party is run by one percenters and look at Obamas chief of staff Lew, he made his company hundreds of millions betting on the demise of the housing market. Look at how many ex Goldman Sachs employees are in the dem party and you say wall street and repubs go hand in hand ? Do you get your info from the likes of Corzine ?
gm
February 13th, 2012
9:00 am
Of course Jay, these people want to go back to the Bush era with no regulations, greed and bring the economy to another halt, and blame middle classs Americans.
Obama has informed them this will not happen again under his watch, but the idiots middle class conservative will line up and vote for a party that destroyed our economy and CEO’s jumped ship and collected millions, what a bunch of misinformed Americans on the right.
ByteMe
February 13th, 2012
9:01 am
you may find America casts it’s lot with the GOP
You’re assuming America has a rampant case of “stupid”. Unlikely.
TGT
February 13th, 2012
9:01 am
The investment in Romney/GOP over Obama is probably occurring for the same simple reason that it did when it was Obama over McCain: Wall Street likes a winner. In other words,this is more evidence that the hand writing is on the wall for Obama. He has been weighed and found lacking.
kayaker 71
February 13th, 2012
9:01 am
And Bozo gets over 28M from SEIU alone. We all seem to have our deep pockets, do we not?
JohnnyReb
February 13th, 2012
9:01 am
Wall Street is in the business to make money. They have learned the error of their ways (2008). Foremost, it makes it more difficult to find investors when the administration has already demonstrated they will circumvent law and put unions ahead of bond holders. Here’s another example of why Wall Street has lost confidence in Obama.
Jack Lew, former White House budget director, stated on Fox News Sundary yesterday that dictating insurance companies to provide contraceptives at no cost will not cost the insurance company any money.
What kind of twisted logic is that? Every thing has a price.
The translation is, that in the overall scheme it will not cost money because it will cost less than the expense of providing birth and healtcare coverage should the baby actually be born.
They just keep digging the hole deeper.
hewhoasks
February 13th, 2012
9:01 am
The “Wall Street” guys who are backing Romney and that whole agenda aren’t interested in a strong Dow, they’re interested in grasping lots and lots more for themselves. If they get that (which they anticipate they will, with Romney clearly a willing stooge) their only interest in the likelihood of the Dow tanking would be in terms of what they could get out of that.
Oscar
February 13th, 2012
9:02 am
Wall street needs regulation. Not going to come from the GOP, so that’s where they will put their money. That’s one reason Obama should be re-elected.
Jm
February 13th, 2012
9:03 am
Obama is probably angling for a Goldman job after he’s done
Or citigroup with his buddy Lew
Normal
February 13th, 2012
9:05 am
Oh look! jm’s trolling again! Ain’t he just the cutest thing? Bless his heart.
Jefferson
February 13th, 2012
9:07 am
All the folks that I know that cheat on their federal taxes vote GOP.
Don't Forget
February 13th, 2012
9:08 am
I’m not so sure this is a negative for Obama. Wall Street still has a bad reputation with the American people. Romney is already a Wall Street guy and not much else except for being a devout mormon. This will just solidify the idea that a Romney presidency will mean Wall Street back in charge again. It fits quite nicely with Obama’s campaign strategy.
Hoof hearted – good Mr Burns quote although I think it was “I’d trade it all for a little more”.
ByteMe
February 13th, 2012
9:09 am
Wall Street likes a winner
Indeed they do. They are in the business of being gamblers and gamblers love winners.
Look for the money to start flowing back toward Obama now that polls show he’s opening a lead. Wall Street crowd is quite craven at betting both sides of a political gamble. Nothing worse than betting against a politician and having him win and hate your guts for the next 4 years (as opposed to just talking smack about you).
Obama is over
February 13th, 2012
9:09 am
No surprise here. If you constantly attack somebody, eventually they might get pissed off. Obama is attacking the rich yet realizes that he needs Wall St. to fix the housing crisis. Thus, we are not going to see any meaningful reform to the GSE’s which were placed in conservatorship at the beginning of Obama’s presidency. They have lost in excess of $180 Billion to date. There is bipartisan agreement that the management has to go, but reforming the GSE’s does not fit into Obama’s Big Government policies. The $26 Billion settlement last week was a start in the right direction, but it only affects people who were foreclosed on and will not ease the housing situation. Franklin Raines, the former FNMA head who was forced to resign in disgrace for manipulating performance numbers for his bonus, is an Obama economic advisor. Markets go up, markets go down. Obama has had little to do with the stock market performance. If things are so peachy, why haven’t all these companies making all this money actually hired people?
Tommy Maddox
February 13th, 2012
9:10 am
“Oh No! Thank goodness the President does not accept contributions from those heathen Wall Street people!! Not a cursed dime!!!” Really?
This is as dumb as Samuel L. Jackson declaring that he voted for Obama because he is black. Just ridiculous.
Tommy Maddox
February 13th, 2012
9:11 am
Oh Jefferson – how may tax cheats do you know? Does anybody you know pay income taxes?
John
February 13th, 2012
9:12 am
Surprise! Jay casts his lot with the Democrats.
willie lynch
February 13th, 2012
9:12 am
It seems to me the prevention of unwanted pregnancies by contraceptives would be cheaper than the expense of care for the mother and the social services that will be needed in the future for both mother and child.
ByteMe
February 13th, 2012
9:13 am
This is as dumb as Samuel L. Jackson declaring that he voted for Obama because he is black.
And just as silly as you voting for McCain for pretty much any reason.
gm
February 13th, 2012
9:14 am
The boss said it all in a song last night Americans take care of their own.
The GOP and Mitt take care of their own, wall street and the rich, what a bunch of un Americans.
Jefferson
February 13th, 2012
9:14 am
Tom, do you cheat on yours ? I will add you to the list.
Jm
February 13th, 2012
9:14 am
Jefferson
And people who don’t pay taxes vote democrat
Suck it up
Tommy Maddox
February 13th, 2012
9:14 am
Nope – pay to stay.