There's a diary at the top of the rec list plugging an article by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone accusing Obama of doing "one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history" by selling out to Wall Street after he was elected on a populist platform and with a mandate to reform Wall Street and restructure our economy to be more friendly to workers.
Although I agree in general with Taibbi's analysis, I think there's considerable evidence that any sell-out to Wall Street actually took place some time before the election . . .
If you consult the historical record, more than a month before the November 2008 election, the bailout was voted down in the House of Representatives. A key part of the anti-bailout coalition in the House was a majority of the Congressional Black Caucus. By the end of the week, the bailout came back for a second vote and most of the CBC voted in favor, securing its passage. What changed their minds? There's considerable evidence that it was personally lobbying from Obama himself that did the trick.
That he lobbied them in support of the bailout is not in question. From CNN at the time:
As part of his lobbying efforts, Obama has called members of the Congressional Black Caucus to support the bailout. When the bailout came up for a vote on Monday, caucus members split 21 against and 18 for the bill, CBC spokeswoman Keiana Barrett said.
http://www.cnn.com/...
That the CBC switcheroo was instrumental in the eventual passage of the bailout is also not in question:
The biggest single constituency to reverse course on Friday was the Congressional Black Caucus. Thirteen CBC members changed from a "no" to a "yes," and many of them had heard from Obama over the past few days.
http://dyn.politico.com/...
So, we can see that with the fall campaign still in full swing, Obama took time out from that campaign to personally and successfully lobby members of the Congressional Black Caucus to switch their votes from opposed to in favor of the Wall Street bailout bill. Matt Taibbi is wrong if he's alleging that Obama sold out to Wall Street only after he was elected; his sell-out occurred at least a month earlier.
As an aside, IMHO, the sell-out actually occurred after he had secured the Democratic Party nomination when he decided not to take public financing for the general election. I know that many here, including Kos himself, would vociferously disagree with that, but from my perspective, it was a statement that maximum fundraising was going to be the priority. Small donors did power Obama's primary campaign, but during the general election, it was a very different story. If you didn't live in a swing state, you were not going to get inside the same room with Barack Obama for less than $28,000 in the fall of 2008. There's a policy agenda that goes along with $28,000 donations, let's be real.
For the record, I do understand that it's difficult (maybe impossible) to get elected at the national level in the U.S. without the support of Wall Street, so I don't really blame Obama for selling out to Wall Street. And for the record, no I don't believe that the world would've "ended as we know it" if the bailout had not passed. In fact, I truly believe that we'd all be better off. But that's a debate from a year ago that will never be resolved conclusively . . .