Outreach
by digby
The NY Times reports today that the administration has been wining and dining Wall Street for the 2012 campaign. They report that he will have some serious fence mending to do before they will be forgiven for hurting their precious feelings by calling them fat cats:
[E]ven as some criticize the president for listening too closely, they say, to Wall Street on issues like the 2008 bailout and financial regulation, he has suffered some unusually public defections and criticism by some former Wall Street supporters, who view his policies and rhetoric as unfair to their industry. Many are Republicans whose support last time around burnished his image as a post-partisan problem solver.
Right. The financial industry has really had a tough time under Obama's policies.
Seeing that the campaign is going to need a hundred billion, nobody can be surprised that they are are begging the Big Money Boyz to cough up. The playing to the refs on the name calling was necessary to give cover for the friendly policies that produced that nice chart above. They are all playing their tiresome roles.
But this is just stupid and gratuitous bad politics:
Newsmax met with President Barack Obama and his senior advisers at a special White House Summit to discuss a wide range of serious economic issues facing the United States and the world.
In a first for the administration, the White House brought together 22 of the country’s leading online media — including Newsmax, Forbes, The Economist, Kiplinger, MSN, Yahoo, and AOL/Huffington Post — to create a platform to better communicate the administration's economic message.
Newsmax Editorial Director Steve Coz and Newsmax magazine Editor in Chief Ken Chandler attended the summit Wednesday and spoke with Obama and his advisers.
Newsmax is a hardcore Republican publication. They might as well have invited Fox or NRO. But I guess hope springs eternal that by being nice to the Republican establishment everyone will love them. It's just sad at this point.
h/t to RP
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