Rove v Elizabeth Warren and the state of Massachusetts
We know Rove lost in Ohio. Now, economist Simon Johnson is saying, Rove is going to lose his battle with Elizabeth Warren.
Americans for Prosperity has sunk some bucks into a political ad condemning Senate candidate Warren. “This ad is not a big surprise,” Johnson writes, ” but the line that Mr. Rove takes could well backfire.”
Mr. Rove is opening the blame game and this is going to go badly for his presumed supporters – the largest banks on Wall Street that took excessive risks, paid their top people well, and then blew themselves up at great cost to the American taxpayer. By all means, let us have a conversation about jobs and the history of job losses in the United States; “too big to fail” banks do not look good in this context.
What are the banks up to these days?
The biggest financial firms have become even larger since the crisis. Their ability to take risk is essentially unfettered. Attempts to roll-back their power have largely been rebuffed. The European crisis now threatens to overcome some of the largest, precisely because they resisted efforts to make them build up larger buffers against losses (shareholder equity). How is this conducive to job creation in any sustained manner?
Same old, same old. Most Americans are well aware of this. Surely the people of Massachusetts who plan to vote next year know all about this, too, just as the people of Ohio knew about John Kasich and the Republican party’s attempt to deprive, diss, and demote the people who work for government and community. Massachusetts people are just as well informed and awake as Ohioans are. They know about “too big to fail,” and they know the banks are still trying to put one over on us. All Rove is doing is to remind them of the bad times.
At the end of the day, the voters of Massachusetts will decide. Do they believe in the radical – in fact, ludicrous and manifestly disproven – theory that “too big to fail” banks will generate good jobs for all? Or do they think that such banks, left to their own devices, will plunge us into another crisis, just as profound as what the Europeans are now going through?
If Mr. Rove directs their attention along these lines, that would be helpful.
Cross posted from the blog Prairie Weather.
Photo via Shutterstock.com
5 Responses to “Rove v Elizabeth Warren and the state of Massachusetts”
“By all means, let us have a conversation about jobs and the history of job losses in the United States; “too big to fail” banks do not look good in this context.”
The “Too Big To Fail Banks”, even the profitable ones such as Wells Fargo, continue to layoff people. Then they whine that the economy isn’t doing better, claiming there’s nothing they can do. What they’re really whining about is that their profits aren’t even greater and of course the banks CAN do something about unemployment simply by keeping their employees instead of laying them off.
The too big to fail banks in Germany are building two large brand new buildings across the street from my domicile.
and I don’t exactly live in the finance district.
I think Warren would do well to frame this election into a her vs Rove Inc election. No one likes Rove.
I watched the ad and didn’t think it was very effective. Rove seems to be trying to take advantage of the growing unpopularity of the Occupy movement by comparing it to the even more unpopular big banks.
Warren’s support of the Occupy movement may end up being a problem for her but this is a dumb way for Rove to approach it.
As a resident of Massachusetts, I will chime in with a few tidbits. Warren (not stated in the above article) is running for Senate against Senator Scott Brown. Rove, of course, is using his Super PAC to spend money to counter E. Warren’s candidacy.
The voters of Massachusetts supported Sen. Brown’s voting FOR financial reforms. If (and I have not seen the ad) Karl Rove is trying to paint big banks as good, he is opposing the candidate his is purporting to help! That’s gotta hurt!
We don’t like unfettered capitalism, just as we don’t like hanging witches (well…not anymore). We have gotten our fingers burned more than once and do not enjoy the prospect of it happening again. The reason that Sen. Brown is the only Republican currently sent to Washington D.C. from my state is because we happen to believe that if done right, government CAN work (and does…our schools are rather good, so are our colleges and universities).
To head off all of the possible assaults, I will tell you right now that we are, in fact, aware of the cronyism in our government (one of the reasons we will put a Republican in the Governor’s Mansion occasionally). The more that political hacks like Rove advertise here, the less chance they will have of influencing our voting–we tend to take a dim view of any ads taken out by PAC’s and others from out of our state. Rove would have a better chance influencing us if he took out his ads in NH or RI. We still get those stations, and would (possibly) get fooled by him if he did not specify his opposition to one of our candidates.
I saw the following on Tuesday and remembered this TMV post.
http://www.economonitor.com/blog/2011/11/wall-street-v-elizabeth-warren/
I couldn’t say it any better.