Republican Defenders of Wall Street Beware: The Tea Party Is Coming

[florida08]

As the Senate vote looms on President Obama's proposal to hold the big Wall Street Banks accountable, Republican members of the Senate are beginning to wake up to a fearful possibility:

That the Tea Party's populist pitchforks may be turned against Wall Street and Republican Senators who defend the big banks.

Turns out that recent polling has shown that Wall Street bankers are almost as unpopular with Tea Party types as President Obama.

A recent Bloomberg poll found that while self-identified Tea Party supporters generally oppose "big government" they are more than happy to look to government to rein in Wall Street. What's more, almost half said that the government should do something about executive bonuses.

In fact, the upcoming vote presents traditional Republican defenders of Wall Street with a serious political problem. It's not just swing voters who could be alienated by their defense of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, CitiCorp and the like. Their votes could substantially diminish the enthusiasm of their base.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/republican-defenders-of-w_b_535287.html

LOL..go tea people

[florida08]

1. more from article

When it comes to Wall Street, a whole other frame takes over. Most Americans, including Tea Partiers, think -- correctly -- that recklessness of the big Wall Street banks cost seven million Americans their jobs. What's worse, they see the guys who caused the collapse stuffing their pockets with multi-million dollar bonuses. Not only wasn't this crowd punished for ruining our economy and stealing our jobs --- they were rewarded. That strikes average Americans - including Tea Partiers -- as an outrage.

[Frances]

2. Fox news forgot to tell Glen Beck to

defend Wall Street against Obama

[BeyondGeography]

3. The Republican base wants OBAMA'S government to do something?

I'll believe that when I see it. All the teabaggers have to hear is Big Government is strangling capitalism, Obama's Government at that, and they'll forget the first eight years of this decade ever happened.

[florida08]

4. They want their

republican representatives to do something. They would prefer to see them act first. Not sure what their (republican congressmen)
strategy is going to be on this but you can bet they're working on it.

[BeyondGeography]

5. It will be interesting, and this is where their Party of No stance paints them into a corner

but we've already had a party line vote in Senate Finance after Corker's bullshit turnabout, so I don't see them cooperating. Suits me as it's bad politics for them, but I don't see the teabaggers getting angry about their failure to be bipartisan.

[florida08]

6. I know

but the focus has been on health care. From NYT in March:

The anger is much greater at the financial industry than it is at the health care industry,” said Steve Hildebrand, a Democratic consultant who helped run Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign. “Once health care is over, this will be given a lot of attention by the president and by Democrats.”

But if it doesn't get the public attention the way health care is then it will be a wash.

Frank Lutz strategy:

Frank Luntz, the Republican political wordsmith, assured opponents of financial regulation legislation in a recent strategy memo that “Washington’s incompetence” represents “your critical advantage.” By linking Mr. Obama’s effort to financial industry bailouts, he argued, opponents can leverage public anger against Democrats. In that effort, the left may prove to have been an unwitting ally of Republicans with its repeated complaints that Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary, and Lawrence H. Summers, the White House economic adviser, are themselves too close to Wall Street.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/us/politics/08caucus.html

[applegrove]

7. Excellent news.