Last week, a few dozen hedge fund and investment executives arrived at the Park Avenue home of Hamilton E. James, president of the private equity firm Blackstone. Each had paid $35,800 to spend two hours at a fund-raiser with President Obama, but the timing proved awkward: A few hours earlier, Mr. Obama’s campaign had begun a blistering attack on Mitt Romney’s career in private equity, the same business in which Mr. James has earned his many millions.
“Campaigns do what campaigns have to do,” Mr. James later told friends. But not everyone was as forgiving. “People were incredulous,” said one person who attended the dinner. “They could have waited a week.”
Debates over how much to blame – and regulate – Wall Street have stoked tensions between Democrats and the financial industry ever since Mr. Obama took office amid a financial crisis. But now Mr. Obama is leveraging his bully pulpit and advertising dollars to argue that Mr. Romney’s career as a successful financial executive exhibited values that are not those of a good president.
In doing so, he has not only drawn criticism from allies like Steven L. Rattner, the investor and former adviser on the auto industry, and Cory A. Booker, the mayor of Newark and a favorite of New York’s hedge fund world. Mr. Obama may also be testing a bond first formed by Bill Clinton, who persuaded much of his party’s elite that Democrats could be both populist and friendly to Wall Street.
“I think the consensus, such as it was, has badly eroded under the pressure of events,” said William Galston, a former Clinton adviser who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “The depth, the severity, and the length of the Great Recession have exacerbated strains within the country and within the Democratic coalition.”
For some Democrats, the line Mr. Obama is trying to walk – between asserting that Mr. Romney’s career at Bain Capital does not support his claim to be a job creator, and criticizing the private equity industry as a whole, between his acknowledgments of the vital role in the economy played by big investors and the scorching attack ads aired by his campaign – is a perilous one.
At stake are not only a political and policy relationship Democrats have nurtured over decades with the financial services industry, but the millions of dollars in campaign cash that have come with it. Already this year, securities and investment firms have given Republicans 59 percent of their donations, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the party’s highest share since the center began tabulating campaign money. Mr. Obama has raised millions of dollars on Wall Street, but far less than he did four years ago.

LINK:http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/us/politics/bain-strategy-against-romney-may-have-pitfalls-for-obama.xml

More importantly, Obama caters to this wing of the party and it’s acolytes. Yes he talks about “fairness,” but, is he really talking about reforming the tax structure? I think you know politics when you see it, my brother — nobody wants to touch yax reform and or campaign finance reform. LOL

That said, yes surrogates have to be careful; but, honesty trumps all. Let’s take this scenario for instance: what if Booker came out slamming Bain Capital on MTP as opposed to airing his personal feelings? What if he did that, and then Romney’s campaign turned around and used his harsh comments against Bain to point to the hypocrisy of it, when Obama and Booker (and many other Democrats) benefit from private equity firms?

Personally, I think what Booker did was in fact a blessing in disguise; and, having said that, maybe it was a good idea that Dems went on an uproar. I say that because ultimately what this does, is force Obama and company to shift the convo to Romney’s record as governor, where it actually should be.

But hey, as polarizing a figure as Obama has been for the left — especially black folks. It’s expected that folks would be up in arms and see Booker’s comments as an attack on POTUS. That coupled with the “scared negro” routine that says, “we’re too close to the elections and we’ve worked too hard to eff this up,” are just a few of the things that irritate me. It’s easy for people to talk than it is to get up and get out and make it happen for Obama by way of volunteering to work with Obama For America in their local neighborhoods and cities.

It’s beyond ironic that Texas Gov. Rick Perry threw the term “vulture capitalist” at Romney, as if Perry didn’t catapult his key donors to adviser positions at the $110 billion Texas Teachers Retirement System pension fund, which then steered it toward increasing private-equity allocations. Newt Gingrich’s video release was even more ludicrous in its attempt to paint Bain as somehow different from every other private-equity firm.

LINK: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/13/the-truth-about-private-equity-politicians-need-it-taxpayers-fund-it.html

Again, what Booker said was true for the most part, but he allowed his emotions to screw up a message that could have been a benefit to the campaign. He’s human…can’t fault him for that.