Goodbye, Mitt. It's over.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Obama is stealing Wall Street from Romney

Commentary: It’s not about positions, issues or values

By David Weidner, MarketWatch

Goodbye, Mitt.

It’s over.

I know, I know. Many of you are going to call me liberal patsy, a mouthpiece for President Obama. You’re going to say I’m in the tank, a Democratic hack. Blah, blah, blah.

Whatever. You can disagree with me, but you can’t argue with facts, and you can’t dispute history. If it were the other way around, I’d call it as such.

The fact is, Romney is behind.

And history shows that, as a presidential election nears, Wall Street — represented by the securities, banking, insurance and real-estate industries — tends to go with a winner.

This doesn’t mean that Romney, who made his career in private equity at Bain Capital, and Paul Ryan, who once championed turning a portion of our Social Security taxes over to personal investment accounts, aren’t more ideologically in line with the financial industry. They are.

It doesn’t mean that investors who support fiscally conservative principles have abandoned Romney in favor of Obama. They haven’t.

What it does mean is that Romney continues to trail in key races. He’s behind by at least five points in the critical swing states of Ohio, Florida and Virginia, according to a new round of polls. Wall Street wants to hedge its bets, buy some influence and be on the winning side. So, it has to make a choice: Support the loser or the winner.

Wall Street always goes with a winner.

It happened in 1996, 2000 and 2008. Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama all saw a rush in contributions just before the election, according to Federal Election Commission data.

The closest to an exception to the rule was in 2004 when Democratic nominee John Kerry started seeing an increase in contributions from Wall Street in the final few weeks before the election. The reason? A tight race with an uncertain outcome. And, even so, President Bush was still outraising Kerry 2 to 1. It had been 3 to 1. See report on 2004 fund raising on Wall Street for presidential campaign .

This year is shaping up to be similar. Romney has raised $28.6 million from finance, insurance and real-estate donors. Obama has raised $12.2 million through Aug. 21. But there’s a lot of chatter about how the gap has narrowed since then.

Until now, Romney has been bankrolled by Wall Street. His top five contributors are people and organizations aligned with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS) , J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) , Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) , Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC) and Credit Suisse Group AG. (NYSE:CS) , according to Opensecrets.org. See a list of Romney’s and Obama’s top contributors by institution .

But Obama has the momentum. The president raised $114 million in August, more than 40% more than he raised in July. Romney raised $111 million, about the same as he’s raised each month this summer.

There are other signs too that Wall Street is betting Obama now. LPL Financial’s Wall Street Election index, which measures the stock performance of so-called Democrat- and Republican-friendly industries has swung strongly to the Democrats since June. See the Sept. 13 Wall Street Election Poll .

Intrade, a futures market set up for bettors looking to cash in on such probabilities, has Obama as a 66.3% favorite to reclaim the White House. Obama has seen a nearly 10-point gain since mid-June. See Intrade’s page for Obama’s reelection chances .

In a perhaps not so unrelated bit of news, Intrade predicts the year-end chances of the U.S. entering a recession at 7.35%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI:DJIA) finishing about 13,000 at 75.8% and a country dropping out of the euro zone at 16.3% — all of which are highs or close to highs for the year.

Separately, an unscientific CNBC poll of Wall Street pros published Sept. 12 gave Obama a nearly 2-to-1 chance of winning. See CNBC poll results .

They’re also reflective of something Huffington Post columnist (and former Wall Street Journal reporter) Mark Gongloff wrote Sept. 14: “It’s called hedging your bets. It indicates that although Wall Street might grumble about an Obama victory, it also apparently doesn’t expect all commerce to halt and all private industry to be immediately nationalized by the government upon the president’s re-inauguration.” Read Gongloff’s piece .

Moreover, Obama has been better to Wall Street than either would care to admit: low interest rates, expanded bailouts, monetary easing, watered-down regulations and a lack of prosecution for crisis-era misdeeds.

Would Romney be even kinder? Probably.

Will he win? I know where you can get great odds if you think so.

[abner137 48]

Good luck........and GoodBye.......

[dalegg 143]

There are battleground states he's already given up on. I think he knows its over, and his "candid" moment to me was an expression of his frustration. He's pretty much right. He doesn't actually have anything to offer about half of the country so he's battling Obama for the other half. He can never take a large enough majority of the second half to overcome the problems he has with the first half so its an uphill battle even without gaffs.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I think he knows its over, and his "candid" moment to me was an expression of his frustration.

You would think wrong. Mitt made those comments back in May.

[dalegg 143]

You would think wrong. Mitt made those comments back in May.

Well Mitt needs to realize he is never private then. Reminds me of when Obama called Kanye West a Jackass.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Well Mitt needs to realize he is never private then.

Romney made similar comments publicly in front of crowds larger than 150 and in front of crowds that didn't pay a median annual income per plate to attend as was the case here. It's actually part of his canned stump speech - "if you want free stuff, vote for the other guy". He doesn't understand the demographics. He doesn't know that he needs many of these people wanting "free stuff" to have a fighting chance. They are part of the Republican base. I don't recall a presidential campaign this inept. And that is the campaign of what we are to believe is this superb business manager. He can't manage his presidential bid for crying out loud. How could he possibly manage the country?

[dalegg 143]

You know, I really got to say looking at everything he said, that this is really one of the most bone-headed remarks anyone could make. To tie the whole of the 47% of households who don't pay federal income taxes directly to victimization and entitlement mentality is absolutely absurd.

I don't know the exact number of what the income cut off here is, but it includes people making somewhere around $40,000 if they have 2 kids I think.

I can remember as I was building my way through my career, I had my young first wife and 2 small kids and I believe in the beginning I was making somewhere around $40K-- granted that was 20 years ago and there is inflation to consider, but there were others in my department making less for sure. I know that at that time with the child tax credits I paid zero state tax for 4 years, and next to nothing in federal taxes.

To think that I felt like I was owed something by the government just because my tax rates were low and I was taking advantage of that actually kind of pisses me off, and this is coming from someone who has always voted Republican. I would think there are many people in the same situation that I was in today, who are young in their careers, with ambition, but just happen to be where they are in federal tax bracket who would still believe in Conservative ideas that are going to find this insulting as well.

Just as the wealthy benefit from the Bush tax cuts, so do all income levels. People in these lower brackets pay next to nothing in part because of the Bush tax cuts! Romney is supposed to support that. So what, we are supposed to want lower tax rates for just the wealthy but roll them back for just the lower income levels??

He is truly an idiot.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Mitt can still win this with voter suppression.

[james&olya 1,121]

You know, I really got to say looking at everything he said, that this is really one of the most bone-headed remarks anyone could make. To tie the whole of the 47% of households who don't pay federal income taxes directly to victimization and entitlement mentality is absolutely absurd.

I don't know the exact number of what the income cut off here is, but it includes people making somewhere around $40,000 if they have 2 kids I think.

I can remember as I was building my way through my career, I had my young first wife and 2 small kids and I believe in the beginning I was making somewhere around $40K-- granted that was 20 years ago and there is inflation to consider, but there were others in my department making less for sure. I know that at that time with the child tax credits I paid zero state tax for 4 years, and next to nothing in federal taxes.

To think that I felt like I was owed something by the government just because my tax rates were low and I was taking advantage of that actually kind of pisses me off, and this is coming from someone who has always voted Republican. I would think there are many people in the same situation that I was in today, who are young in their careers, with ambition, but just happen to be where they are in federal tax bracket who would still believe in Conservative ideas that are going to find this insulting as well.

Just as the wealthy benefit from the Bush tax cuts, so do all income levels. People in these lower brackets pay next to nothing in part because of the Bush tax cuts! Romney is supposed to support that. So what, we are supposed to want lower tax rates for just the wealthy but roll them back for just the lower income levels??

He is truly an idiot.

It almost makes you wonder if this is the political equivalent of professional wrestling. Is Romney really this incredibly stupid or is he taking a dive?

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Both sides are stupid.

Joe Biden Mocks Mitt Romney For Using Same Definition Of Middle Class As Democrats

Posted: 09/17/2012 6:23 pm Updated: 09/18/2012 12:13 am

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Joe Biden said Monday that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is so out of touch with regular Americans that he thinks the middle class extends to people making up to $250,000.

But Biden apparently forgot that that's the same benchmark that President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats regularly use when talking about extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class.

During a campaign event in Burlington, Iowa, Biden mocked Romney for saying Obama is out of touch with average Americans when Romney is the one with Swiss bank accounts and millions of dollars tucked away in the Cayman Islands.

"He thinks the middle class is $200,000 to $250,000. Whoa! Whoa!" Biden said to cheers. "Don't you all wish you were in that middle class? Whoa!"

In an interview last week on ABC's "Good Morning America," Romney said he would define "middle-income" as between $200,000 to $250,000 a year and less.

"He's totally out of touch with the reality of what ordinary Americans deal with every day," Biden said about Romney. "He does not get it. He does not understand."

But for months, Obama has been urging Congress to extend the "middle-class" Bush-era tax cuts on the first $250,000 of people's income.

"Pass a bill extending the tax cuts for the middle class, I will sign it tomorrow," Obama said in July. "I just believe that anybody making over $250,000 should go back to the income tax rates we were paying under Bill Clinton."

Congressional Democrats, too, have consistently used the $250,000 threshold when talking about middle-class cuts. In July, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) hailed Senate passage of a bill extending the Bush-era tax cuts at that level. And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) conceded in August that she was bluffing when she briefly said the limit should be bumped up from $250,000 to $1 million. It should stay at $250,000, she said.

UPDATE: 8:02 p.m. -- An Obama campaign aide responded by reiterating that Romney's policies are aimed at helping the wealthy.

"As the vice president made clear in his remarks today, Mitt Romney’s proposals are out-of-touch -- he would voucherize Medicare, and pay for new tax cuts for the wealthy by hiking them on the middle class. While President Obama is fighting for middle-class families and has cut their taxes every year he’s been in office, nonpartisan studies have made clear that Mitt Romney's tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires come from only one place -- the pockets of middle-class families. That's the clear choice in this election," the aide said in a statement.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

To think that I felt like I was owed something by the government just because my tax rates were low and I was taking advantage of that actually kind of pisses me off, and this is coming from someone who has always voted Republican.

Especially when such offensive comment is coming from a guy who defends his super low effective tax rates saying that he's only taking advantage of the tax code paying only what's required. If he does that, it's cool. If middle class Americans do that, they're government dependent leeches seeing themselves as victims. Mitt has no concept of what an average American family deals with. No clue whatsoever.

[dalegg 143]

Especially when such offensive comment is coming from a guy who defends his super low effective tax rates saying that he's only taking advantage of the tax code paying only what's required. If he does that, it's cool. If middle class Americans do that, they're government dependent leeches seeing themselves as victims. Mitt has no concept of what an average American family deals with. No clue whatsoever.

This is going to kill whatever he had left in his campaign. The Obama camp must have had a party when they heard this recording. If Obama had any problem coming up with a re-election campaign, Mitt just handed it right over to him on a silver platter. This is far more damning than "you didn't build that". And these remarks about begin Hispanic...aye aye aye

The polls are going to look really interesting in about a week.

[Penny Lane 8,159]

While I don't think it's over for Romney at all (there are enough people that are against Obama that it'll be close no matter what) ... he has major issues. It seems like he spends the majority of his time defending things he's said or done, even if they were months ago. We were supposed to learn about the real Mitt Romney at the convention and it didn't happen. After that, the campaign stated they were "re-tooling" ... and America still really doesn't have a solid idea of who Romney is as a person.

If this continues, I think it will be their major downfall in November. They haven't sold their candidate to America. Too many people don't know what he's about, what he'll do, what he believes, etc.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

While I don't think it's over for Romney at all (there are enough people that are against Obama that it'll be close no matter what) ... he has major issues.

Wall Street thinks it's over for Mitt. They're done with him. Let this 47% disaster and the "don't I wish I was Hispanic" blunder play out in the polls over the next several days and there's no climbing back. Mitt Romney has been running on no other issue than not being Obama. That doesn't work. Not if the President's approval rating stands at 50%. There certainly is a significant anti-Obama crowd out there. But there is no pro-Mitt crowd. No Presidential election was ever won that way. And this one won't be either.