Matt Stoller reminds us that BET chair Robert Johnson was also involved in lobbying to maintain the hedge fund tax loophole. That on top of the estate tax and Social Security business. Surely, Hillary Clinton can find some better African-American surrogates than this.
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Robert Johnson: Friend of the Rich
14 Jan 2008 11:45 am
Comments (25)
Well, maybe she can't. After all, they both have the same friends:
Corporate elite fear candidate Edwards
"...Obama and Huckabee register largely as unknown quantities among business owners, both large and small, say lobbyists.
"My sense is that Obama would govern as a reasonably pragmatic Democrat ... I think Hillary is approachable. She knows where a lot of her funding has come from, to be blunt," said Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at Stanford Group Co., a market and policy analysis group.
But Edwards, Valliere said, is seen as "an anti-business populist" and "a trade protectionist who is quite unabashed about raising taxes."
"I think his regulatory policies, as well as his tax policies, would be viewed as a threat to business," he said.
"The next scariest for business would be Huckabee because of his rhetoric and because he's an unknown.""
Given his extremely vocal (and slightly crazed) opposition to taxes on the super wealthy, kind of makes you wonder why he's supporting Hillary. Put the race issue aside for a second and ask: What does he know that we don't?
This is the sort of argument against HRC that makes sense. Why would she take the stage with this jerk? That's the line the Obama campaign should be following. This hyper-PC hunt for supposedly racist code words is just silly. On the issues Obama can beat her. He and his campaign should spend more time on the issues.
Also, this from Chait "lost" New Republic article on Johnson (September 3, 2001):
"So Johnson did what he often does when his interests are at stake: He played the race card. Johnson gathered a collection of black business leaders and demanded an end to the estate tax. Taking out newspaper ads of their own, Johnson's group attacked the tax for draining wealth from the black community. Unlike "very wealthy white Americans" who supported the tax, he declared, "We as African Americans have come to our wealth on a different path, a different road than they have." Gates and his friends, Johnson implied, were not really promoting the common good; they were trying to keep the black man down. All of a sudden, it was not so clear who held the moral high ground. Estate tax repeal had become a civil rights issue.
Almost no one--not even the White House--had thought to frame the issue this way. And for good reason: It is a bizarre inversion of the truth. "Elimination of the Estate Tax," Johnson's ad argued, using extraneous capitalizations for emphasis, "will help close the wealth gap in this nation between African American families and White families." But the estate tax is paid only by people who inherit large fortunes, and black people, as one might suspect, are far less likely than white people to do so. (Blacks make up about 12 percent of the population, but less than one-half of 1 percent of estate tax payers.) And the revenues from the tax, obviously, fund government programs, which tend to help those with low incomes, who are disproportionately black. Repealing the estate tax, therefore, would dramatically widen the wealth gap.
But Johnson gave Bush the cover he needed to once again cast himself as a champion of minority interests. "As Robert Johnson of Black Entertainment Television argues, the death tax and double taxation weighs heavily on minorities," said Bush, who added that his plan would allow people to transfer wealth "from one generation to the next, regardless of a person's race."
Fortunately for Johnson, and even more fortunately for his heirs, estate tax repeal subsequently passed into law. But Johnson's campaign to abolish the estate tax was more than just a way to save a few million bucks. It was the beginning of a political partnership between the CEO of BET and the president of the United States, one that has now turned its attention to an even grander cause: the privatization of Social Security. On May 2, Bush appointed Johnson to his commission charged with transforming the popular program. Once again, Johnson has racialized a long-standing conservative crusade. We must turn Social Security into a system with individual investment accounts, he argues, because the existing program unfairly shortchanges blacks. Social Security overhaul is Bush's most radical--and most politically perilous--aspiration. That the administration has entrusted Johnson with this task, despite his lack of expertise (and, indeed, his lack of any history of public interest in the issue), is a measure of the ideological reliability with which it now regards him. Johnson, according to one analyst, "is trying to position himself as Bush's go-to guy in the African American community." And it looks like he's succeeding."
Um, the dude's way, way, way rich. What else matters? Policy-schmolicy, it's the super-rich what got to be listened to. People seem to be suggesting that to a Clinton it's a negative that someone might be a power mover on the Republican right. I'd like to see some evidence for that.
I always thought Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads outside Rosedale Mississippi, and not in the canyons of Wall Street.
Not to mention the Bobcats have no coherent offensive philosophy in the halfcourt.
The primary thing Matt has no understanding of: Once people become successful, they tend to think that they might do more good with the money they've made than the government will.
James Robertson: True they do. But, people like Warren Buffet also understand that things like the estate tax help to keep our society meritocratic and is an institution that encourages rich people to actually give to charity, set up foundations, etc. before they die so they actually do some good with the money they've made. I understand you probably are thinking about investing in a business which creates job, doing good for the economy. That is all true of course, but an estate tax is an inheritance tax. Will the Paris Hiltons et al. really be doing "good" for society? In any case, the estate tax was a good way of keeping inequality from getting out of control.
James, none of that is in any way relevant to the estate tax, but your concerns are noted.
...Once people become successful, they tend to think that they might do more good with the money they've made than the government will.
Posted by James Robertson
Yeah, I'm pretty awed by the super-awesome magical wisdom of the ultra-rich every time I read about gigantic finance companies losing ungodly sums in our little real estate economy adjustments now. Thank God them pesky government regulators also bought into the magical mystery tour of brilliant upper class insightfulisms.
This all is very frustrating.
What's happening here?
It appears that the Clinton's have embarked on a strategy to label Obama as the "black candidate". Clinton chooses to give up on the black vote in hope of wooing poor, uneducated whites (establishment democrats who are easy to mobilize).
yes, i'm assuming and believe that these poor, uneducated democrats are subconsciously racist. And I think her plan will work.
I truly hate the Clintons.
To say that Bob Johnson is not a beloved member of the African American community is an understatement.
This link says it all.
@thehova....uncertain of what is going on? Here is a detailed analysis of what is going on and why. In a nutshell the Clintons are playing the race card to appeal to Reagan Democrats and galvanized white racial solidarity as they believe they cannot wrest enough black votes to win, which they have always relied on. So, the gameplan has changed for the Clinton. The African American 'special interest' group is being smeared and the Democratic party split so the Clintons can win back the WH.
This is the brilliant (though deplorable) Clinton strategy:
First, you put out stuff though surrogates that is a little insensitive, but nothing that is not plausibly deniable nor easily fixed with an apology. Examples: shaheen drug dealer, penn cocaine, kerrey madrassa, cuomo shuck and jive, anoymous to guardian “hip black friend, etc” These are poison pills to be introduced into the media echo chamber. This Bob johnson comment is just the latest exxample.
After the poison pill is out there for about a news cycle or so, extend it by making a news cycle about the apology or backtracking or justification.
Make sure you come up with something new every week or two to keep the conversation alive.
The plan is never to be overtly racist, never to have a Keith Richards/Kramer moment, of course. The way to play the race card without looking like playing the race card is to knock off Obama by a “death by a thousand (racial) cuts” as opposed to any full-frontal racial attacks.
Now, the Obama people know that any polarizing discussion of race hurts them, so for the most part they just shut up abaout it, be magnanimous, and try to rise above. And for most the campaign through shaheen and kerrey they turn the other cheek and appeal to our better instincts as Hillary appeals to our bad instincts.
Obama has done that. He has remarkably made this campaign as little about race as possible. So much so that people had forgetten about the fact that he is Black. But when the clintons started falling behind, they had to find ways to remind folks “He’s one of those people.”
Now while Obama is going to try hard to stay above the fray, it is impossible to expect that every media outlet and black person in the country is not going to eventually get upset with the “death by a thousand cuts” race baiting.
So here is the next brilliant manuver on the part of the Clintons campaign. Once these non-Obama campaign people start complaining a little, hang their grievances around Obama’s neck and say or imply that Obama is playing racial politics himself. Central to this is to make a straw man argument with the complicit help of media hacks. Basically ignore the really bad stuff (drug dealer, secular madrassa, hip black friend, etc) and focus on the least offensive (fairy tale) and then knock down the straw man that the Clintons are racists themselves while ignoring the pattern or subtle, death by a thousand cuts, code worded, rovian appeals to racism in the electorate. The media is structuring this story to play into the “blacks getting upset over nothing” mentality. Meida types are going to erect the straw man, knock it down and then accuse Obaam of race baiting when he is the vicitm of it and say that he is doing this to win in SC. This is brilliant “blame the victim” jujuitsu, folks and you saw HIllary doing this very thing yesterday in the NYtimes, in the AP stroy, and on Meet the Press
And here is the Associated Press version of tHIllary’s jujitsu: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Clinton-Obama.htm l
Noticed that they even got the Assocated press to write a story being sent to low-infomtion, casual voters in local papers thoughout the country putting Al Sharpton and Barack Obama in the same sentence.
Mission accomplished, they must be saying over at Clinton headquarters. After injecting race into the discussion, the Clinton people have just conned the NY Times and Associated Press and used Meet the Press to spread the lie that the LBJ/MLK concerns originated not in the broader black community but rather was some distortion coming from the Obama campaign, something that is demonstrably false.
They’re cheering over at Clinton headquarters because the media is dutifully playing into the “Black folks yet again getting riled up over nothing and making whites feel guilty” narrative and muddying the waters by hanging this around the Obama campaigns’ neck.
Hillary says “I think” this all came from the Obama campaign.
Please, she knows well that people like Clyborn and Brazille came to opinions on their own on this and that Burton, Axelod, Ploufe, etc did not manufacture their opinions
The goal of the Clinton campaign is simple and brilliant: make the Obama campaign personally responsible for every thing ever said by any Black person in America (while claiming that they are not responsible for the words of their national co-chair/shaheen, pollster/chief strategist/penn, key endorsers Kerrey and Cuomo, or the candidate’s husband himself.
This is yet another way the Clintons are brillantly turning Obama, somebody who has gone out of his way to be a post-racial conciliator , as “the aggrieved black candidate.” By morphing him into Jesse Jackson in the eyes of voters, just as republicans morphed Max Cleland into the images of Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in the 2002 midterms, the Clintons are simultaeously playing “death by a thousand cuts” racial politics while tarring Obama as the racially divisive figure.
If this were a crime drama, the story line would be the innocent being framed by the real perpetrators. Oops, I just gave the Clintons their next line of attack, to compare Obama with OJ.
God, the Clintons are really good at manipulating the media. I wonder if Karl Rove is giving them the advice he hinted to in the wall street journal this week? 8 years of HIllary may be the best route to a 2016 Jeb Bush restoration and Karl Rove likely has a vested interest in the propogation of bi-dynastic wedge politics.
And then in the so called “Damage control” Bill Clinton goes on Al Sharpton’s radio show. Why did bill Clinton go on Al Sharpton’s radio show? It was a tactically brillinat manuver to get Barack Obama and Al Sharption in the same news story and thus subtly linked in the minds of your average, relatively unsophisticated voter who does not take the time to hear Obama’s full inclusive speeches, but has just now read an AP article in their local paper mentioning both Sharpton and Obama and she or she is thinking to himself, “When I get behind that curtain, there is no way that I am voting for THAT guy.”
Now the Clintons are not dumb, they knew there would be blowback from the black community, but they know that blowback will help them get solidarity with voters they needs and Obama had been making inroads with in Iowa: lower class white democrats. Furthermore, as this contest moves towards Nevada and Feb 5th, the Clintons know that by ginning up a little racial crucible, they are going to help turn out hispanic voters. Look at what one of Clinton’s own pollsters said in buried in the last two paragraphs of Ryan Lizza’s latest article:
“On the morning after Clinton’s victory, I talked to Sergio Bendixen, one of her pollsters, who specializes in the Hispanic vote. In all honesty, the Hispanic vote is extremely important to the Clinton campaign, and the polls have shown and today is not a great day to cite polls that even though she was slipping with women in Iowa and blacks in South Carolina, she was not slipping with Hispanics, he said. The fire wall doesn’t apply now, because she is in good shape, but before last night the Hispanic vote was going to be the most important part of her fire wall on February 5th. The implications of that strategy are not necessarily uplifting.
When I asked Bendixen about the source of Clinton’s strength in the Hispanic community, he mentioned her support for health care, and Hispanic voters affinity for the Clinton era. It’s one group where going back to the past really works, he said. All you need to say in focus groups is Let?s go back to the nineties. But he was also frank about the fact that the Clintons, long beloved in the black community, are now dependent on a less edifying political dynamic: The Hispanic voter and I want to say this very carefully has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.”
So the clinton campaign has admitted on the record that part of their electoral strength going forward is hispanic racism against blacks. The clinton people know the demographic changes in this country are favoring Hispanics and so its ok if Blacks are thrown uder the bus at this stage of their political career.
Just as Bill Clinton was proclaimed the “First Black Preisdent” Hillary “chips and guacamole” Clinton is now going to try to be crowned the “First Hispanic president.” Look there is a pattern of reasonably high level surrogaes doing this dirty work, and not just against Obama. Earlier in the year, both Rangel and Vilsack came out to trash Guilliani on his marriages and infidelity right around the time the christian evalngelicans were gathering for some meeting. Of course, the clinton campaign denies that they had anything to do with that either.
How many times does this have to happen for people to realize that this is a pattern, not an isolated accident?
Now that people are starting to get wise to her tactics, she is going to play her “A” game: have black supporters like Ben Johnson put out the poison pills to enhance the plausibly deniable aspect by having the person saying them be black and not white.
If people really believe that these are all “Accidents” or simple “misunderstandings” then you have to accept the proposition that the clinton campaign is not in any control of its high level surrogates. Do we really think this lack of discipline will serve her well in the general or in the white house?
So take your choice, either Hillary is a nixonian race baiter or she is not in control of her own campaign.
Which makes people think she would be the best leader of the free world?
This scrofula has been in the works for a while. Bill and Hill would hire an Obama lookalike to rape and kill a 14 year old white girl if they thought they could get away with it. I don't know what Obama can do about this, but he better come up with something soon.
Robert Johnson forfeited his right to publicly comment on matters of race regarding the black community when he treated the same black community as a commodity. Apparently he can't see past the bottom line, so why should black voters acknowledge his "insight" on Barack Obama?
I find this post to be picky, derogatory, pointless and altogether demeaning to the poster. Aren't there real problems to deal with.
As for Obama's swift race-boating the Clintons, I can say: a) Rove will be proud of you and b) the Democratic party has never sunk that low before. Thank you Obama.
Now I understand what unity means: Let all Roves unite!!!
And the anti-Clinton conspiracy nuts come out in force. Yes, Trevor, vicissitude, thehova, the Clintons are simultaneously the most brilliant and the most evil and possibly also the most insane politicians of all time.
In fact, they're so brilliant that they probably created vicissitude as a front through which to make Obama's supporters seem like unhinged conspiracy nuts and drive people like me to vote for Hillary. Damn, those Clintons are good!
Hillary supporters like ROB MAC always seek to play the victim card. Just like their candidate Hillary who plays the victim card and shoots the messenger.
It's so interesting that all Clinton supporters have to appeal to is there own sense of victimhood. They're just never treated fairly, are they? Someone is always misinterpreting them or being, you know, mean.
Obama is "divisive" the press is against us, men are against us, Chris Matthews is a jerk, the Iowa caucuses are flawed etc. People aren't allowed to call us on our BRAZENLY dishonest, sleazy brand of politics. They have run a corrupt and deeply dispiriting campaign.
But no, we're not allowed to point this out. That makes us "haters". Just add us to the list, eh Clinton gang? The world is like soooo out to get you. Almost enough to laugh if I didn't actually care about the future of this party
If Bill & Hill molested and immolated a 4 year-old Senagalese girl refugee- ROB MAC koolaid Clintonista #.0031 would say it demonstrated the Clintons' deep concern for Africa. In his mind the Marc Rich pardon demonstrated their unending fight for truth, justice, and the scumbag gonif way.
You guys are right. The Clintons had the whole thing worked out. Make some racist statements. That's how you win the Democratic nomination. Sure, they had to apologize, but it put Obama on the defensive. They basically had the entire news cycle plotted out--what each pundit and Obama supporter was going to say and when, and how they would respond. Bill was especially clever in realizing that his use of the word fairy tale in describing Obama's opposition to the Iraq War would be construed as racist. It's remarkable how good those Clintons are!
The only thing they did not see coming, though, was that clever folk like Trevor and vicissitude would see through their dastardly plot and reveal it to a horrified nation.
And Trevor, your sick fantasy about little girls says more about you than it does about anyone else.
Oh, yeah, and you guys forgot to mention Vince Foster and Juanita Broderick. For the record, I'm not accusing anyone of being a hater. I'm accusing people of being Clinton conspiracy nuts.
vicissitude makes a pretty good case if you ask me. It's similar to the campaign Rudy Guiliani ran for NY mayor.
Sadly, this is a primer for a Fall campaign against Obama in the unlikely event he gets the nomination.
The latest numbers from Rassmussen:
"among white voters, Clinton leads 41% to 27%. Among African-American voters, Obama leads 66% to 16%."
"I think Hillary is approachable. She knows where a lot of her funding has come from, to be blunt," said Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at Stanford Group Co., a market and policy analysis group."
Translation: "We know Hillary is corrupt. Marc Rich proved that, not to mention numerous other events in her and Bill's life."
What is up with the term "surrogate." Is Bob Johnson having Hillary's baby? Because that would be pretty damn impressive.
Comments closed January 28, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
He doesn't sound like a Democrat at all. I think you could claim to be heterodox with the hedge fund loophole and estate tax, but not with privatizing Social Security! Maybe the Clintons should be asked about those topics instead of the racial ones. It would be pretty funny for Obama's campaign to shift gears and take them to task on those issues.
The perceived advantages to Clinton to having the BET chair onboard apparently outweigh those pretty big disadvantages.
Posted by bob | January 14, 2008 11:56 AM