OH, NO, OBAMA DOESN'T WANT TO RUN THE AUTO COMPANIES--BUT:
Guess who's making salary decisions for those companies:
"The Obama administration plans to order companies that received huge government bailouts last year to sharply cut the compensation of their highest paid executives, according to a person familiar with the decision. The seven companies that received the most assistance will have to cut the annual salaries of their 25 highest-paid executive by an average of about 90 percent from last year, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it has not been announced....The seven companies are: Bank of America Corp., American International Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., General Motors, GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial."
When the auto bailouts were announced, the president said repeatedly that he didn't want to "run" GM or Chrysler.
Well, he can say that all he wants. But guess what--if you're deciding how much those companies' executives are being paid, then you're running those companies. Conservatives should pound away on points like this--they go both to the immense new powers being grabbed by this administration, and to its inability to be straight with all of us.
THE NOT-SO-OPEN OBAMA ADMINISTRATION DEPT:
Guess what else the administration's little spat with Fox News revealed?:
"Then, those enterprising little ferrets at Fox News dug up some old video of Dunn from a January conference in the Dominican Republic, where she talked about Obama campaign media strategy...."One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters," she said (emphasis added). "We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it." Right. Because when you are running on "transparency" and more to the point, "accountability," it's just a pesky time-waster having to actually talk to reporters, about policy and positions and whatnot. Better to just issue a video press release and refuse their quarrelsome little entreaties! They should be grateful for that much!"
POLL WATCH:
Basically they still show Republican McDonnell leading comfortably in Virginia, Republican Christie barely ahead or maybe tied with Corzine in New Jersey, and all over the map on the generic congressional vote for 2010 (ABC has Dems with a 12 pt lead, but Rasmussen has the GOP with a 5 point advantage).
Again, I predict Christie will beat Corzine in New Jersey. Corzine's negatives are very, very high, and consistent. And I question ABC's poll findings--I read today that it claims that Republican Party affiliation in this country is down to 20%. I don't buy that for a second. Republican candidates, both this year and in early polls concerning next year's races, are doing too well.
By the way, here's some more info on the drop in President Obama's popularity:
"President Obama's job approval numbers dropped approximately nine percentage points between his second...... and third quarters in office, according to Gallup. Gallup: "In fact, the 9-point drop in the most recent quarter is the largest Gallup has ever measured for an elected president between the second and third quarters of his term, dating back to 1953. One president who was not elected to his first term -- Harry Truman -- had a 13-point drop between his second and third quarters in office in 1945 and 1946."
You know, Lyndon Johnson wouldn't have been surprised at this. He told his staff, not long after his landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964, that his poll numbers would soon be going nowhere but down, that he and his administration would be losing thousands of supporters every day. Because that's the nature of the beast--no politician can keep high poll numbers indefinitely. That was why, LBJ said,, they had to move fast and achieve big things quickly.
Has Obama lost his window of opportunity???
