Ties that bind: Obama-ClintonWH, Obama-Harvard

Change implicitly requires risk — the risk of not sticking to the status quo. While the man alone embodies plenty of differences from his 43 predecessors, it looks like much of his nominees, appointees and supporting cast are 20th Century Clintonites or Ivy-Leaugue and Harvard-types:

As Mike Allen highlights Al Kamen’s analysis:

WHO’S WHO — WashPost’s Al Kamen: “Fully 42 percent of Team Obama’s picks for Senate-confirmed positions so far worked in the Clinton administration. And if they appear to come from elite, private schools, well, they do. In fact, about one-fourth of those named so far either attended or taught at Harvard, to name just one esteemed institution. On another front, men are outnumbering women by more than 2 to 1 in the top jobs.”

More alarming is the entrenched owning class interests of the financiers and financial titans that run the Treasury Dept, Fed Banks and White House by association. In a troubling and telling article on “Obama’s Collusive Capitalism“:

The Obama policy of collusive capitalism is most evident in the financial bailout. He has placed his economic program in the hands of a man — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner — who can best be called, as analyst Susanne Trimbath puts it, a “lap dog of Wall Street.” A protégé of former Treasury Secretary and Citicorp board member Robert Rubin, Geithner played a pivotal role in the original Bush bailout of the Wall Street elite…. The Geithner plan, Stiglitz noted this week in a New York Times op-ed, represents “the kind of Rube Goldberg device that Wall Street loves: clever, complex and nontransparent, allowing huge transfers of wealth to the financial markets.” The winners in the plan are the top guns of the financial industry, who would welcome further government-sponsored financial consolidation. For them, this would be vastly preferable to the more democratic alternative of selling the remaining assets of the failed large firms to dispersed, healthy, usually smaller, regional institutions. Perhaps one has to start with the very obvious fact that the president — despite occasional attacks on the greed of Wall Street — did not run against the financial markets but, rather, with their strong support. As early as the 2008 Democratic primaries, noted New York Times Wall Street maven Andrew Ross Sorkin, Obama had “nailed [down] the hedge fund vote.”

What more will it take for us to realize that we don’t share many/any political or social or economic interests with these fat wallets running the Obama administration.

Keating to McCain: Till Death do Us Part

I doubt that it was meant as a marriage vow towards an unsavory marital partner. Nonetheless, it is a curious way for a banker named Charles Keating to refer to a political candidate of John McCain.

I came across this blog due to a Times (UK) article about the $50,000 in contributions bundled out of the law firm Keating founded. The Times linked to an Oct 9 Washington Times article no less, that includes a jpeg of McCain’s letter of apology on official US House letterhead that Charles keating had the gall to write on top of and send (back!) to Congressman McCain. He even starts it off with “Don’t be silly.”

An odd way of opening — is it meant to be light-hearted? collegial? or chastising?

The opening is followed by “you can call me anything. Say anything. do anything. i’m yours.”

Is that suggestive? or an absolute commitment?

***

I did a few quick inflation calculations (thanks to Inflation Calculator) of how much $166,000 of early 1980s money is worth in today’s dollar amounts. $166K from 1986 equates to $310K in 2007 (a convervative figure, as the ‘82 figure would equal $350K )

… which would have made the unname bundler out of the Keating law firm not only a Pioneer in the 2004 Bush campaign but a Super Ranger. Or the elite of the small dollar campaign contribution corralling that has arisen in the post-McCain-Feingold era.

Zinn: spend your time on Direct Action, not Oba-Clin-cain

Howard Zinn makes a lengthy statement about why we should be more concerened with foreclosures than Hillary’s clothes, Barack’s childhood travels.

Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war. Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens [emphasis added]

Two Prospects for ‘08: the Millennials, the Senate GOP

One is daunting, and another is promising:

In this assessment from an AEI Fellow posted Wednesday on thehill.com, the GOP faces some gynormous obstacles in the US Senate next year:

Democrats may have six real chances to pick up seats to the Republicans’ one. That imbalance points to Democratic gains of two to four seats.

And this is coming from Fortier, as the byline points out is a Fellow with one of the most conservative thinktanks in the Beltway.

Meanwhile, a July article on wiretap ponders who and what the under-35 age range — a voting bloc, in formation — oversimplifies who did the new voter registration in recent federal election seasons. While the Hip Hop Action Summit Network, Rock the Vote, PunkVoter, musicforamerica were vital there were many grassroots and local voter registration, voter education and get-out-the-vote campaigns. Local efforts were done with far fewer dollars yet much more local knowledge, context and networks.

But the biggest questions to ponder are: Who will shepherd the Millennials into politics and political engagement? And how will the 18-31 year olds participate (particularly in ways that are different from their parents, elders and older siblings)?

As Michael Connery states:

Four years later, many of the organizations that helped drive that cultural shift are closing up shop or scaling back just as the Millennial generation is beginning to come into its own. In 2008, 50 million Millennials (those aged 18 to 31) will be eligible to vote. Some studies show Millennials are already rivaling Baby Boomers in size.

Why the Youth Vote Matters

or why we — those of us up to 29 — mattered in the 2006 mid-term elections is decipherable from this pretty image from the MFA folks:

For starters…

For starters, here are some recent stories that stoked my interest in money and politics:

Money Chooses Sides, by John Heilemann
New York Magazine, April 23, 2007.

The 2nd Quarter 2007 Political Contributions to Presidential Candidates: Mitt, Johnny “son of a millworker” Edwards, McFallin’ McCain, Rudy, Hillary, Barack et al.
from Open Secrets.org (unofficial)

“In the Money”
Washington Monthly, July 2, 2007

Moving Past Push Pins
this is a sweet online map of the places making the biggest political contributions to each presidential candidate