Smartest Guy in the Room

Five-terms in the Senate have made failed presidential candidate, Obama surrogate, and potential secretary of State John Kerry an amazingly prescient investor

Andrew Stiles

May 3, 2012 12:00 pm

Failed Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry’s (D., Mass.) long history of ethically dubious investments could invite controversy as he takes on a new role as a “top surrogate” for President Obama’s reelection campaign.

Kerry’s net worth as listed on his 2011 financial disclosure form is at least $193 million and likely much higher, making him the wealthiest member of the Senate. He is also a prolific investor, maintaining an array of stocks and other holdings through a mix of family trusts, marital trusts, and commingled fund accounts with his wife, Big Ketchup baroness Teresa Heinz.

The five-term Senator has a well-documented history of investing in companies that would benefit from policies he supports, as well as making conveniently timed and highly profitable trades coinciding with the passage of major legislation and, in some cases, the dissemination of privileged information.

For years, Kerry has invested millions in a number of green energy companies that have benefitted from the president’s efforts to aggressively subsidize the industry with taxpayer dollars.

These companies include Exelon, which received a $646 million taxpayer-guaranteed loan in 2011 to build a solar facility in California and created only 20 permanent jobs, as well as Fisker Automotive, the fledgling electric car company that offshored its manufacturing operation to Finland after receiving a $529 million federal loan guarantee in 2010.

The loan guarantees, approved by the Department of Energy, were made possible by funding allocated in the 2009 stimulus bill, which Kerry supported. According to Kerry’s own office, the Senator “played a key role” in crafting the portions of the legislation designed to offer federal support for green energy projects.

Additionally, Kerry co-authored the controversial cap-and-trade legislation that would have effectively imposed a tax on carbon-dioxide emissions. Though the bill ultimately failed, the New York Times noted that Exelon and companies like it “would emerge as financial winners” if the legislation was enacted.

Kerry has hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), a venture capital firm run by John Doerr, a prominent Obama donor who served on the president’s Economy Recovery Advisory Board.

The firm, where former vice president Al Gore is a partner, invests heavily in alternative energy companies such as Fisker Automotive and Amonix Inc., a Nevada-based solar panel manufacturer that laid off two-thirds of its workforce earlier this year despite receiving nearly $6 million in federal tax credits.

Amonix was one of 16 companies (out of 27 overall) listed in Doerr’s “green-tech” portfolio to receive some form of federal support under Obama.

Kerry purchased—through family trusts—between $30,000 and $100,000 worth of shares in a number of KPCB investment funds, including its “Green Growth Fund,” and continued to purchase shares throughout 2010, according to the Senator’s financial disclosure forms.

Kerry is one of several lawmakers prominently featured in Throw Them All Out, Peter Schweizer’s landmark book on how elected politicians exploit their privileged positions to enhance their personal wealth.

The Massachusetts Senator’s most dubious trading activity coincided with two major political events—the financial crisis of late 2008 and the passage of President Obama’s controversial healthcare overhaul in March 2010.

Kerry was one of at least 10 Senators to trade financial stocks just days after a Sept. 16, 2008 meeting between Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, and leading members of Congress to discuss the increasingly dire state of the financial markets.

In mid-October 2008, as the Treasury was discussing which banks would be bailed out in the Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP), Kerry bought up to $550,000 worth of Citigroup stock and up to $350,000 worth of Bank of America shares. Days later, the American public learned that Citigroup would receive $50 billion from the TARP fund and up to $277 billion in additional loan guarantees. Bank of America also received $50 billion from TARP.

During the contentious healthcare debate in 2009, Schweizer noted, Kerry loaded up on pharmaceutical stocks, purchasing close to $750,000 worth of shares in one company—Teva Pharmaceuticals—in the month of November alone.

Drug companies were viewed to be among the major beneficiaries of the Democratic healthcare legislation. Pharmaceuticals “kicked in $80 billion to help make the bill work, but stand to make 10 times that amount in revenues from added government and government-subsidized business,” liberal columnist Howard Fineman wrote in Newsweek.

Teva stock was trading at about $50 a share when Kerry started buying, but jumped to $62 a share after the healthcare bill was passed, an increase of nearly 25 percent. After Obama signed the bill into law, Kerry sold his Teva shares, realizing tens of thousands in capital gains.

Kerry also bought shares of ResMed, a company that makes medical devices, which surged more than 70 percent after the healthcare bill’s passage. Throughout the healthcare negotiations, Kerry consistently opposed efforts to increase taxes on companies like ResMed.

He also purchased stock in Thermo Fisher Scientific, a firm providing products and services to hospitals, at $35 a share. After passage, they were trading at $50 a share, an increase of more than 40 percent.

As Kerry was buying shares of companies certain to benefit from healthcare reform, he was selling stock in healthcare insurance providers, which were deemed big losers under the new law.

That is hardly the extent of Kerry’s questionable dealings, however. He has millions of dollars invested in funds operated by some of his largest campaign donors, including Bain Capital, Beacon Capital Partners, and the Blackstone Group, investment firms that have collectively given more than $170,000 to Kerry’s campaigns since 2007.

The Washington Free Beacon reported in February that Kerry helped secure a $3.5 billion windfall for hospitals in Massachusetts that would net tens of millions in new federal support for Partners HealthCare, another prominent campaign donor.

Kerry’s controversial financial activity could complicate his recently announced role as a top surrogate for Obama’s reelection campaign. The president has repeatedly sought to blame wealthy investors such as Kerry for precipitating the financial crisis of 2008 and has expressed sympathy for the controversial “Occupy Wall Street” movement, which has become notorious for advocating and in many cases carrying out vandalism against large banks and investment firms.

Employing Kerry as a prominent campaign spokesman could also unwittingly highlight a popular criticism of the president—that his major policy initiatives have had little impact on the struggling economy but have succeeded in enriching a small number of wealthy supporters.

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Obama: Permanent Campaigner

Obama has heldmore re-election fundraisers than previous five Presidents combinedas he visits key swing states on 'permanent campaign'

By Toby Harnden

Daily Mail

29 April 2012

Barack Obama has already held more re-election fundraising events than every elected president since Richard Nixon combined, according to figures to be published in a new book.

Obama is also the only president in the past 35 years to visit every electoral battleground state in his first year of office.

The figures, contained a in a new book called The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign by Brendan J. Doherty, due to be published by University Press of Kansas in July, give statistical backing to the notion that Obama is more preoccupied with being re-elected than any other commander-in-chief of modern times.

Doherty, who has compiled statistics about presidential travel and fundraising going back to President Jimmy Carter in 1977, found that Obama had held 104 fundraisers by March 6th this year, compared to 94 held by Presidents Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Snr, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush combined.

Since then, Obama has held another 20 fundraisers, bringing his total to 124. Carter held four re-election fundraisers in the 1980 campaign, Reagan zero in 1984, Bush Snr 19 in 1992, Clinton 14 in 1996 and Bush Jnr 57 in 2004.

Doherty, a political science professor at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, has also analysed presidential travel to battleground or swing states, which change and fluctuate in number with each election cycle.

In their first years in office, Carter visited eight out of 18 battleground states and Reagan seven out of 17. Bush Snr, Clinton and Bush Jnr all visited around three-quarters of battleground states while Obama went to all 15 within his first 12 months.

While the Obama’s campaign activities in office have been largely in line with historical trends, he is especially vulnerable to criticism because in 2008 he promised to change how politics works and to curb links with special interests.

Vowing in 2008 to ‘launch the most sweeping ethics reform in US history’ Obama said that if elected he would ‘make government more open, more accountable and more responsive to the problems of the American people’.

In his State of the Union speech in January, Obama bemoaned the ‘corrosive influence of money in politics’. The following month, he reversed course and announced he was allowing cabinet members and top advisors to speak at big money events for so-called super PACs – unaccountable outside groups raising money for his re-election.

During the 2008 election, Obama abandoned a pledge to opt for public funding of his campaign, instead opting to raise an unlimited amount privately. He then raised and spent approximately $730million, almost double the campaign funds of Senator John McCain, his Republican opponent.

Up to the end of March, Obama had raised $191.6million for his re-election bid, compared to $86.6million raised by his Republican challenger Mitt Romney. His frenetic fundraising activities are in part because he is lagging behind campaign expectations. Early last year, some advisers spoke privately of raising $1billion.

In his book, Doherty writes that in his first full month in office Obama visited Indiana, Florida, Colorado, Arizona and North Carolina – all battleground states - in 2012. 'Clearly, the White House made a point of the president travelling to key electoral states early in his term in office.'

This week, the Republican National Committee (RNC) lodged a formal complaint with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) about alleged misuse of taxpayer money by Obama.

The Obama campaign dismissed the complaint as a ‘stunt’ and the White House said that it would follow the same rules as previous administrations and refund the appropriate amounts.

In the complaint, Reince Priebus, RNC chairman, wrote: ‘Throughout his administration, but particularly in recent weeks, President Obama has been passing off campaign travel as “official events,” thereby allowing taxpayers, rather than his campaign, to pay for his re-election efforts.’

Doherty, however, said that although the tactic of labelling Obama’s activities as fraud was ‘novel’ in reality the opposing party always complained about a president facing re-election dressing up political events as official ones.

‘This is not new. The Republican complaint is more of a situational complaint than a principled complaint because they certainly weren’t complaining when George W. Bush did this eight years ago.'

He added: ‘In 2004, President George W. Bush broke all records for presidential fundraising in terms of time devoted to fundraising and in terms of money raised and at the time Democrats hit him hard for that.

'Obama has already surpassed Bush [Jnr] in numbers of re-election fundraisers, but not yet in money raised.'

The rising costs of campaigns, lower contribution limits, the breakdown of the public financing system, the 24/7 media environment and the professionalisation of campaigns had all led to successive presidents having to devote more and more time and energy to raising money.

He added that the ‘big picture’ was incumbent presidents fearing defeat. ‘Until 1976 [when Carter beat President Gerald Ford] no sitting president had been defeated for re-election since 1932. It had been 44 years.

‘And then three of the next four presidents who tried [Ford, Carter and Bush Snr] lost. Of all the presidents re-elected since Ford lost to Carter, only Reagan has won in a landslide. George W. Bush’s re-election [in 2004] was close, Clinton got less than 50 percent [in 1996]. There is a very keen sense among presidents that they really might lose.’

Kirsten Kukowski, an RNC spokesperson, said: 'It’s no surprise that the Campaigner-In-Chief has taken raising money for his re-election to a whole new level. The worst part is the American taxpayer has been footing the bill.' The Obama campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

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Election 2012

What is at stake is the very meaning of being an American.  What is at stake is the heart of America, the purpose of America.  What is at risk is losing the soul of America is we ....


Apparently if Pat Buchanan references Christianity in the above, he gets fired.  But when Obama says it, he is justaposing it against Republicans ... that unless he wins, the country and the future loses if Republicans win ....

Isn't he inclusive.  Making his re-election an issue of what is the essence of being an American or America. 

Obama 2012: 'Osama Bin Laden Will Never Again Walk the Face of This Earth. That’s What Change Is.'

 

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At a campaign event this evening at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C., President Obama indicated that he had successfully brought about "change"--an ambiguous 2008 campaign promise--by killing terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. From the official White House transcript:

And change is keeping one of the first promises I made in 2008 -- ending the war in Iraq and bringing our troops home. (Applause.) The war is over and our troops are home. And instead, we refocused our efforts on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. And thanks to our brave men and women in uniform, al Qaeda is weaker than it’s ever been, and Osama bin Laden will never again walk the face of this Earth. That’s what change is. (Applause.)

The president also listed Obamacare as a change he was responsible for, though he failed to mention the unpopularity of his signature legislation.
And the president warned that Republicans threaten the "very core of what this country stands for."

The very core of what this country stands for is on the line -- the basic promise that no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, this is a place where you could make it if you try. The notion that we're all in this together, that we look out for one another -- that's at stake in this election. Don't take my word for it. Watch some of these debates that have been going on up in New Hampshire.

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Obama: The End of ther Line?

The end?

Someone is CLEARLY wrong and someone is right.  Listening to and reading comments from the Left, one would assume all is well, and more - that everything is going according to plan (pretty much). 

I am so confused.




Patrick H. Caddell and Douglas E. Schoen argued that just as Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson decided not to pursue additional runs though they could have, Obama should do the same.

“He should abandon his candidacy for re-election in favor of a clear alternative, one capable not only of saving the Democratic Party, but more important, of governing effectively and in a way that preserves the most important of the president's accomplishments. He should step aside for the one candidate who would become, by acclamation, the nominee of the Democratic Party: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,”Caddell and Schoen wrote.

Caddell, who worked as a pollster for President Jimmy Carter, and Schoen, who was a pollster for President Bill Clinton, argue that Obama will inevitably have to run a negative campaign in order to win reelection, the negative consequences of which will make it difficult for him to govern effectively.

“One year ago in these pages, we warned that if President Obama continued down his overly partisan road, the nation would be ‘guaranteed two years of political gridlock at a time when we can ill afford it.’ The result has been exactly as we predicted: stalemate in Washington, fights over the debt ceiling, an inability to tackle the debt and deficit, and paralysis exacerbating market turmoil and economic decline,” they write.

Caddell and Schoen say they write as “patriots and Democrats” who are concerned for their country, and they do not expect to play a direct role in any possible Clinton campaign.

This is not the first time Caddell and Schoen have made this argument. They wrote in November 2010 in The Washington Post that they “do not come to this conclusion lightly. But it is clear, we believe, that the president has largely lost the consent of the governed.”








obama

Obama 2012 - so ominous a ring. Maybe the Mayans were right.

He may be trying to jump ahead of potential opponents within his own party, given one of them has every reason in the world to quit this week after looking quite 'foolish'.




Obama '12 launch likely next week


Glenn Thrush and Mike Allen
POLITICO
April 2, 2011 09:52 AM EDT




President Barack Obama plans to announce his reelection campaign early next week in an electronic message to grassroots supporters, Democratic sources tell POLITICO.

Obama launches with a recovering economy and a weak, fractured Republican field, but with chaos in the Middle East that adds unpredictability to an environment that points to likely reelection. Obama’s campaign, which could raise $1 billion or more, will be based in Chicago, just a few blocks from the headquarters of his historic 2008 race.

The most likely day for the campaign to file registration papers with the Federal Election Commission is Monday, but officials are not committing to a specific date in case some transcendent event in the world would overshadow the kickoff. Obama aides want to tell their supporters first, and so are not encouraging preview stories by the press.

The president’s announcement will be transmitted directly to supporters through text messages, email and social media, not with an appearance by Obama, the sources said.

The launch could come any time, according to the sources. The website is ready, the donation button has been tested, and call sheets to key political supporters are set.

David Axelrod, who returned to Chicago after serving as a White House senior adviser for the first two years, will once again be Obama’s strategic guru.

Obama campaign organizers have long planned to launch at the beginning of the second quarter so they can show a fundraising juggernaut in their first report to FEC. But they couldn’t pull the trigger on the first day of the quarter, April Fools’ Day, and then the next two days were weekend days. Obama is scheduled to raise money for the campaign in Chicago on April 14, and the campaign had to formally organize before that date.

Former West Wing staffer Jim Messina, Obama’s likely campaign manager, has been holding donor meetings around the country, and the president is scheduled to hold a series of fundraisers in New York and California over the next few weeks. The campaign expected to raise $750 million to $1 billion.

On Friday, White House press secretary Jay Carney teased reporters about the FEC filing, one of the worst kept secrets in Washington, inserting a breathless, dramatic pause into a typically monotone readout of Obama’s schedule for the next week.

“On Monday, the president will …” Carney said.

“File?” suggested Chip Reid, a CBS reporter.

“Wait for it, Chip,” added Carney, with a chuckle. “On Monday, the president will attend meetings at the White House.”

Last month, POLITICO reported that Obama aides were planning to announce creation of Obama’s reelection campaign in early April. On Friday, Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Obama’s staff planned to file the reelection paperwork Monday.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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