Lobbyists and Presidential Candidates

Two recent articles illustrate the extent to which lobbyists dominate Presidential campaigns. One hope for Obama is that he may be less influenced because he has been in Washington for less time and thus the lobbyists have had less time to get control of him.

The New York Times reported on the role of Hillary Clinton's chief strategist, Mark Penn's, lobbying firm's role in getting US approval of the Columbia free trade agreement. It sounds like his firm, Burson-Marsteller, has lost its contract with Columbia at the same time Mark Penn has lost his position with Hillary's campaign.

Meanwhile The Nation reports on the role of the lobbying firm of one of John McCain's insiders, Charlie Black, in making Ahmad Chalabi one of the most important men in Iraq. Black is a principal at Black, Kelly, Scruggs & Healey, another one of the most powerful lobbying firms in Washington, which is also owned by Burson-Marsteller.

It looks as if Hillary and McCain are not masters of their own destinies, but are rather tools of backroom masterminds intent on bringing Washington under their control. It appears that Burson-Marsteller is America's Rasputin.

Israel, Jews, and the US Election

It appears that there are a substantial number of American Jews who oppose Barack Obama because of what they perceive as his position on Israel, as reported by The Nation in "(Some) Jews Against Obama. As the article points out, there is no basis for most of their concerns. This was followed up by a Nation article on "Smearing Obama" that said a particular target of the false smears against Obama were directed at Jews.

Meanwhile, Mother Jones reports that Hillary is pandering to American Jews and Israel by taking a position that Israel should have "an undivided Jerusalem as its capital." This appears to mean that she believes the Palestinians have no right to any part of Jerusalem. By deciding one of the major issues beforehand, this makes talks on peace between Israel and the Palestinians virtually pointless. The problem with Hillary's position on Jerusalem is illustrated by Helena Cobban's recent posting on Jerusalem, for example.

Finally, John McCain's recent visit to Israel appeared designed to pander to American Jews. Besides visiting the Holocaust memorial in his yarmulke, he seemed to be getting his foreign policy advice from Sen. Joe Lieberman, who advocates an American war with Iran on behalf of Israel. The sight of Joe whispering in John's ear about what to say about al-Qaida in Iraq was not a pretty sight.

I'm reminded of the movie Bulworth, where Warren Beatty's senator character says something like, "My staff knows they always have to put the rich Jews on my campaign schedule." Hillary and McCain need that "rich Jew" money. Obama has enough money coming in from regular people that he doesn't have to pander to any particular group. Thus, it appears that the Jews fear him because they are afraid that they can't control him, as they do Hillary, McCain, and most Presidents, certainly including George Bush, whose Middle East policies are blatantly pro-Israel, to the point of arming Fatah Palestinians in the hope that they will kill Hamas Palestinians.

Wall Street vs. Main Street

The economy lost 80,000 jobs and the stock market barely went down. To me this signifies the disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street, the rest of the country. It's fairly typical that bad news for middle America is good news for Wall Street, but with everybody concerned about the financial turmoil on Wall Street and the potential recession for the whole country, that attitude is particularly poignant. Wall Street is happy that jobs are being outsourced to China and India because it reduces labor costs. Detroit and the rest of the rust belt is already suffering from this Wall Street attitude, but the pain is spreading to the rest of the country outside of the playgrounds for the rich, like Manhattan, Beverly Hills and Aspen. Meanwhile, the fat cats on Wall Street, who got us into this mess, just got bailed out to the tune of $30 billion or more, while the average Joe, who has just been minding his own business, will get a tax rebate of $600 or so.

Pimco Loses Confidence in Bernanke

It's not a good sign when Bill Gross of Pimco, probably the foremost bond trader in America, loses confidence in Bernanke, as he has according to this Bloomberg report. Gross does not think that Bernanke is committed to fighting inflation. Bernanke is more concerned about cutting interest rates to keep the stock market up, which seems to be working, since it's up over 100 points at the moment. But what's best for America's future? Probably not another stock market bubble.