Outsized influence of the rich waiting to deal to Obama in elections

Photo / APN

No, agrees Phil McCarthy, a former Titan among big-money venture capitalists in the United States, it may not be a good idea to drive in here with Obama stickers on your car.

Just north of Florida's Vero Beach, St John's Island is a gated community for people of serious means. And, if we're honest, Republican leanings.

For McCarthy, settling in for dinner beside the beach club pool, this is a rare evening - he means to speak his mind about President Barack Obama.

It is his duty to speak up, McCarthy says. He had asked some buddies to join him in offloading about the President. Jim Broadhead, a former chief executive of Florida's electric company and one-time Delta Airlines director, has enthusiastically agreed. But others, he said, were more wary.

That the US is riddled with conservatives who consider Obama a socialist horror show is hardly a secret. But if some dismiss disciples of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party as ignorant "wing-nuts", they should know this: their views are but nothing compared to what wealthy, highly educated conservatives think.

What's striking is that Broadhead and his ilk are having a real impact on mid-term Congressional elections, and proving a significant drag on the President who has been repeatedly hammered by Republicans for failing to help entrepreneurs. These people have access to politicians and the money to influence them.

The outsized influence of the rich has provoked howls of anger among the left-wing commentariat.

"The craziness has gone mainstream," Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times last month. "A belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold; it's their money and they have the right to keep it."

But that viewpoint hasn't really gained much traction. And what the better-off have to say - rarely offering examples or evidence - is also a reminder of a broader perception that this White House is anti-business.

When Obama went to explain his financial reform bill to Wall Street, he got a cold reception, and tongues wagged when he declined to invite the heads of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan to the legislation's signing.

Stephen Schwarzman, co-founder of the giant private-equity fund Blackstone Group, this year likened some Obama's tax-reform proposals to "Hitler invading Poland in 1939".

"I think he's somewhere between a socialist and Marxist," muses McCarthy, once an adjunct business professor at Columbia University. "He's definitely not a capitalist. His value system is basically socialist."

He recalls approvingly a recent Forbes magazine article that argued Obama inherited an anti-colonialist mindset from his Kenyan father.

"He hates imperialism and he thinks that people who make money are imperialists," he says.

"His philosophy is really out of step with the vast majority of Americans ... Obama is spouting all these Marxist things."

Broadhead is offended by Obama on many levels.

There was the returning to the British Embassy of a bust of Winston Churchill that had sat in the Oval Office since the 9/11 attacks. He dislikes his habit of blaming things on George W Bush, and he singles out what he says is Obama's habit of doing press conferences without the US flag as a backdrop.

While healthcare reform, the bailouts and Obama's perceived patriotism deficit come easily into our conversations, the Obama plan to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for the richest Americans do not.

If those tax cuts were to be extended, it would cost the Government about US$680 billion ($903 billion) over the next 10 years. But asked if he was ready to pay higher rates again, Broadhead is terse.

"I would rather not. We're the ones who are supporting the economy, investing in new businesses."

Everyone does want to be clear about one thing - the animus against Obama is not personal.

"I am not a bigot," McCarthy says, noting that the election of a black President was a step forward.

"Obviously I'm not a great admirer of Mr Obama, but I don't hate him."

But with friends like that, Obama might want to apply elsewhere for beach club membership.

THE NUMBERS

* Average salary on Wall Street last year: US$311,279

* Median US income was: US$50,221

* Cost of making Bush-era tax cuts permanent for the richest, over the next 10 years: US$680 billion

* Share of American households surviving on income below the poverty line ($10,977 a year): 6.3 per cent

* Share of Americans earning more than $100,000 - nearly 50 per cent of the country's entire income: 20 per cent

- Independent