Thursday, October 2, 2008

Biden's bread, buttered

Eric Wasserstrom at The Times' Trade and Economy Watch points out a potential conflict of economic ideology within the Obama/Biden camp that might get dragged into the open during tonight's horrible ass-kicking:
Vice presidential candidate Joseph Biden has a dilemma with respect to his stance on consumer lending practices versus the Obama campaign’s perspective. In 2005, Mr. Biden supported the legislation that altered the consumer bankruptcy code in favor of lenders, including credit card companies, many of which are based in his home state of Delaware. In contrast, the Obama campaign is far more pro-consumer.
Though Wasserstrom may be right that Palin's button-pushers could seek to roll this out during the debate, how is it news that a six-term senator from Delaware (the majority of publicly-traded corporations and 6 out of every 10 Fortune 500's are incorporated there) voted in favor of policies that would benefit those industries?

More over, while Obama really has no choice but to ride the economic populism pony these days, let's remember who Wall Street is backing:
Other companies are getting in on the ground floor with the new chief by stuffing money in his ears. Overall, Obama is flat-out kicking McCain's ass when it comes to Wall Street contributions, raking in nearly $9 million from securities and investment executives, compared to $6.2 million for McCain.
None of this, of course, changes the fact that Sarah Palin is an embarrassingly incompetent fraud who has no business backing up Father Time. Let's hope that point doesn't get lost in the conversation because it doesn't sell enough papers.

h/t jsg

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