Dueling Duopolists

The botta-in-tempo between the two swaggerers of the One Percent continues unabated this week. Both presidential candidates continue to helplessly reveal themselves as the willing puppets of the aristocracy, even as they frantically try to shove their Louis Vuitton political baggage under their Aubusson carpets. They brazenly position themselves as champions of the middle class at the same time they grovel at the feet of hedge fund managers at $75,000-a-plate fundraisers, jetting hither and yon to the international playgrounds of the rich. 

Mitt partied in the Hamptons with the VIPs a few weekends ago, and will be feted by a panoply of Libor banksters in London later this month. George Clooney is hosting a fundraiser for Obama in Switzerland, that rarefied land of secret bank accounts. Meanwhile, Barry himself jetted down to Palm Beach today, greased palms at the ready.

And the spouses are no longer immune from the Marie Antoinette syndrome, either. As Michelle Obama was headed for the posh summer digs of the Massachusetts Governor/former board member of the subprime mortgage fraudster Ameriquest, Gov.Deval Patrick has ordered the road to his Berkshires mansion in a cash-strapped county freshly paved for the First Lady's motorcade. The Republicans are dubbing the $20,000-a-head fundraiser "The Princess and the Potholes."

Michelle's fundraising stump speech never fails to mention that she grew up in a cramped working class apartment in which her mother still lives. Even though her mother now resides on her own private floor in the White House. 

Ann Romney. who always reminds us she doesn't "feel rich", took some time out from her dueling Cadillac schedule today to lambast "you people" for daring to ask for more tax returns and more of their untaxable millions. The Democrats started running ads making fun of her dressage horse, until somebody mentioned M.S. Then they remembered the Hilary Rosen "never worked a day in her life" debacle and reined in that particular attack. For now.

This is all so silly. Why can't people listen when these women assure us they are just like everybody else?

As I wrote a few days ago, fully 90% of all the Rombama TV ads are negative. It's a nonstop bash-a-thon, and the cable giants are laughing all the way to the bank. In the latest round of "Who's the Biggest Hypocrite?", the Romney campaign asks whatever happened to Barry's White House Council on Jobs and Competitiveness (which in reality is nothing more than an in-house deregulation lobby of big business leaders and one or two  trade unionists.) The group has not formally met since January, when the Obama re-election campaign officially got underway. The White House claims the president has just had way too much on his (fundraising) plate lately to schmooze with the likes of tax-evading G.E. honcho Jeff Immelt and union-busting hotel heiress Penny Pritzker.  According to Politico's Josh Gerstein,

To cap it all off, several of the companies whose CEOs serve on the panel are involved to some extent in outsourcing — a fact that could undercut the ferocious attack Obama and his campaign are mounting on Romney over his alleged ties to the practice.

One former administration official said the current political atmosphere could be prompting the CEOs and other business leaders to lie low.

“The thing is supposed to be bipartisan, so a lot of times they don’t want to get into things that could be used by either side in the election,” said the former aide, who asked not to be named. “The businesspeople, for the most part, don’t want to get into the middle of political fighting.”

The business people don't want to get their hands dirty, and the politicians can't wash the dirt from their own hands. 

Oh bountiful for specious smiles, for ample wads of green. For purple-wearing majesties, who fawn and bribe and preen. America, America. Who took our jobs from thee? They stole the goods, those Wall Street hoods! From sea to oil-sheened sea.