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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (129917)	2/1/2010 7:41:49 PM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 542839

More on 2010 political campaign themes. ----------------------------------- February 1, 2010 LOOKING FOR THE WEDGE.... Marc Ambinder reports that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is encouraging its candidates to push a specific narrative that, if the campaign goes well, puts Republicans in an awkward position. [The DSCC] wants their Senate candidate to emphasize two main points on the campaign trail: pin down Republican opposition to a tax on banks -- and pin down Republican support of the Citizens United decision, which would open the door to increased corporate influence in American elections. [...] 73 percent of Americans say that Washington hasn't done enough to regulate Wall Street, according to the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. This is one reason why Democrats plan to schedule a series of votes on campaign finance -- and to try to bait Republicans into voting yes. This is one way for Democrats -- in power -- to run against powerful interests. Sounds like a reasonably good strategy. Getting voters to appreciate the still-unclear implications of the Citizens United case at the Supreme Court is far trickier, but the "Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee" seems like a straightforward pitch: Obama wants to get back the money we gave banks in the bailout, and Republicans are against the idea. Given that even Rasmussen shows Americans approving of the idea by a fairly wide margin, Dems could do worse looking for an effective wedge issue. A Republican strategist who helped orchestrate last year's GOP gubernatorial victory in Virginia conceded that the "push-back message" against the tax on banks is "nowhere near as strong as the Democrat attack." Democrats, it seems, are counting on it. —Steve Benen 11:20 AM washingtonmonthly.com

To: JohnM who wrote (129917)	2/1/2010 8:27:56 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542839

Obama's three Republican predecessors were all committed to weakening or even destroying the country's regulatory apparatus: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) All three organizations had more regulations, and exerted more control over the country on the day Obama took office, than they did before Obama's three Republican predecessors. Reagan actually did go for some real deregulation, but not so much from the Bushes, and even under Reagan a number of forms of regulation did increase.