The upcoming election may appear to be between a Republican and a Democrat but it could end up being a battle between two massive moneyed interests: Big Oil vs. Wall Street, i.e., the Koch Brothers and ExxonMobil vs. the savvy businessmen of Goldman Sachs and Citibank. The clash of the titans may play out in the coming year through their proxies, Wall Street backed Barack Obama and Texas oilman, Rick Perry. (Unless the GOP decides Perry is too radical and chooses Romney)<\/p>\n
How does this moneyed influence play out in real life?<\/strong><\/p>\n Here are a couple of examples. Unlike President Obama, the CEO of ExxonMobil has endorsed the carbon tax. <\/a>Obama prefers a cap and trade market,<\/a> a less effective tool on both economic and environmental grounds. But a carbon tax doesn’t provide Goldman Sachs a market to manipulate, so Obama doesn\u2019t (and couldn\u2019t) support it. If you want to read more about this issue, Matt Taibbi covers it well in his now classic Vampire Squid<\/a> piece.<\/p>\n When the BP oil spill occurred in 2010, Republican governor Rick Perry, warned against a \u201ca knee-jerk reaction\u201d to the spill. He recommended against shutting down drilling in the Gulf<\/a> because the cost to the country (oil industry) would be staggering. He suggested the spill could have been an act of God. You can read further about his oil industry friendly position on the spill at Politico.<\/a><\/p>\n What we can be sure of, the election will not be about us<\/strong><\/p>\n The election will not be about the needs of working families, i.e., jobs, health care, housing, education, ending corporate driven wars, regulating banks and corporations, or getting money out of politics. We will be addressed at rallies and televised debates. We will attend campaign events where the candidates will flip hamburgers and serve us pancakes. They will drink our beer and eat our bar-be-que to assure us they are one of us, and on our side. We will listen to the stirring faux populist rhetoric of two charismatic leaders and compare their messages, hoping once again that they mean what they say.<\/p>\n Yet. who wins will depend on the state of the economy, the candidate who has the most money and the most effective TV ads, his or her performance in scripted, televised \u201cdebates,\u201d and how well GOP voter suppression tactics work against Democratic GOTV efforts. That the economy is predicted to be similar to what it is today, if not worse, does not bode well for President Obama\u2019s reelection. A tired, scared, discouraged population may, in desperation, give an evangelical Republican a chance to clean up Bush\u2019s mess, or, if businessman Romney is the candidate promising jobs, they may give him a try.<\/p>\n Something similar happened in 2010, when the normally sensible, progressive people of Wisconsin, scared and discouraged about the economy, elected Koch Brothers backed Scott Walker for Governor. Why? Because he promised to create jobs, which is what Perry, pushing his Texas (un)miracle<\/a>, will do if he is the Republican party’s nominee. The people of Wisconsin, who are suffering from voter’s remorse, are now trying to recall Governor Walker. Democrats have a good chance of doing so if they can overcome the rampant GOP vote tampering and suppression tactics that have been rampant in the recall elections of senators. Elections are never simple\u2014or clean.<\/p>\n