President Obama’s decision to embrace the SuperPAC culture brought him loads of negative press, not the least of which came this morning when Russ Feingold called it “a dumb approach.” To make matters worse, Obama followed his flip-flop by sending his Campaign Manager, Jim Messina, to assure Wall Street leaders that the President will not be demonizing them as he pounds the populist drum on the long march to November. So much for the interests of “we the people” to get money out of politics.
From Lee Fang of Republic Report:
Jim Messina, President Barack Obama’s campaign manager, assured a group of Democratic donors from the financial services industry that Obama won’t demonize Wall Street as he stresses populist appeals in his re-election campaign, according to two people at the meeting.
At the members-only Core Club in Manhattan, Messina provided a campaign briefing last night for some of the president’s top donors, including Ralph Schlosstein, chief executive officer at Evercore Partners Inc., and his wife, Jane Hartley, co-founder of the economic and political advisory firm Observatory Group LLC; Eric Mindich, founder of Eton Park Capital Management LP; and Ron Blaylock, co-founder of GenNx360 Capital Partners.
With one meeting, Barack Obama and Jim Messina have completely dismissed the Occupy movement and the desires of millions of Americans who want to see corporate influence over elections wane. It is hard to imagine they thought the meeting would go unleaked, unreported or unnoticed. Perhaps they aren’t concerned. President Obama has undermined his campaign slogan of “change” once more, at the very moment he could have set a positive example of permanent change for our political process.