Obama Faces Political Risks by Staying Soft on Wall Street George Zornick May 17 2012

[wilsonbooks]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/167938/obama-faces-political-risks-staying-soft-wall-street?rel=emailNation




New polling out this week shows that beyond the moral and economic imperatives to holding Wall Street accountable, there are significant political imperatives for President Obama as well.

In five critical states—Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Florida—a majority of independent voters say the administration is not doing enough to police Wall Street banks in the housing market. Strong majorities of independent voters in each state agree that the economic crisis was caused in part by criminal actions on Wall Street. It’s important to reiterate these are independent voters in purple states.

Ari Berman argued persuasively this week that Obama should follow Elizabeth Warren’s example and make Wall Street accountability a centerpiece of his campaign. It’s a political winner, and I strongly suspect the Obama team knows this but is more concerned with losing financial industry donations. Berman argues this could be replaced with money from small donors energized over the get-tough approach, which may be true.

But the administration’s reluctance may go deeper than simply counting dollars and votes. A hard truth is that there may be many people inside the White House who are just philosophically opposed to going after the financial industry, and who, if they didn’t work in it themselves, have many friends and political allies there.If that’s not the case, it’s clear that broad swaths of voters would, and do, believe it—and the onus is on the White House to convince them otherwise.

[Hawkowl]

1. No shit. nt.