And the award for best actor in the role of sniveling baby goes to … Wall Street!
by digby
The conventional wisdom, of course, is that Wall Street has turned its back on Mr. Obama out of frustration with his so-called antibusiness rhetoric and “fat cat” comments about bankers.
But Wall Street’s absence may be more about optics — the way things appear— than reality. Behind the scenes, it seems that many bankers are not running away from the president as quickly as some might suspect.
While many of the biggest name financiers feel that they can’t publicly support Mr. Obama through campaign contributions the way they did in 2008 — “it would be bad for business,” one brand-name chief executive of a major bank acknowledged — some still plan to vote for him. And some begrudgingly acknowledged that they don’t yet see a viable alternative to Mr. Obama among the Republican field.
It also turns out that Wall Street is not the only one concerned about optics. The president’s re-election campaign has not been actively courting Wall Street’s biggest C.E.O.’s to appear at such fund-raisers out of fear that their support could offend his most liberal backers, two people involved in planning his fund-raiser at Daniel said.
“A picture of Lloyd and Obama together probably isn’t helpful,” one of these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid upsetting his role in the campaign. (It is unknown whom Mr. Blankfein plans to vote for.)
Yeah, it probably isn’t…
Of course most of this Wall Street whining was playing the refs. And it worked beautifully to keep any policy options narrow and geared toward everyone’s personal interest. Since campaigns are now costing in the billions, any candidate is going to have to give them a certain deference. After all, they have most of the money. (Recall that Wall Street was Obama’s single biggest contributor in 2008.)
I think what still astonishes me, however, is the degree to which these Masters of the Universe were willing to play the role of sniveling little babies, insisting that they deserved to looooved not hated. It was mostly for show, but it just proves once once again that there is no depth to which they will not sink in order to grab a buck. They have no pride and no dignity.
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