The Democrats and Big Money

[Geee]

Front Page Magazine:

According to a recent report in the magazine Politico, high-ranking Democrats are now energetically wooing big-money donors in the wake of President Obama’s re-election. It appears that the moral reservations expressed not so long ago by some Democratic leaders have ebbed, and that plans are already underway to consolidate their funding infrastructure for the future.

Even in the mercurial world of politics, the pronounced softening on big money is a notable reversal. In January 2010, when the Supreme Court ruled that political action committees (known as super PACs) could accept unlimited donations to fund advertising campaigns, President Obama went immediately on the offensive, castigating the Court’s decision as a threat to democracy.

 

 

Positioning himself as the defender of “average Americans” against (Republican) big money, he described the Supreme Court’s “devastating” decision as a “major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.” Obama’s angry lament played into a tried and effective Democratic strategy: whatever their personal wealth and elite connections—and Obama certainly has both, if not to the extent of super-rich politicians like Senator John Kerry and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi—Democrats have always declared themselves to be on the side of ordinary working Americans and against the unscrupulous rich.