Weigel

“Billionaires for Obama”

In the University of Wisconsin’s newspaper, Ellen Molina reports on the local Republican response to President Obama’s Tuesday rally: “Billionaires for Obama.”

Protestor Jeff Waksman spoke at yesterday’s event, atwhich the protesters portrayed Fortune 500 CEOs such as George Soros,Paul Allen, Jeffrey Immelt and Robert Eckert, as well as U.S. Sen. RussFeingold, D-Wis.

 

“We didn’t want to do a standard protest. Instead, wewanted to draw people’s attention with a sense of humor,” said Waksman,who portrayed the role of George Soros, founder of Soros FundManagement.

 

The group said its goal was to raise awareness about howObama’s economic stimulus benefits billionaires more than working-classpeople.

Protestors said these new laws are hurting our economy byfundamentally supporting Fortune 500 companies such as General Electricand Constellation Energy.

 Well, that’s a twist. It reminds me of a spectacle I saw on the trail in the January 2010 special election in Massachusetts. “Billionaires for Bush,” the old protest group that pulled some stunts on the 2004 campaign trail, showed up under the banner of “Billionaires for [Scott] Brown.” I saw them sing and shout slogans at a couple of Brown campaign stops, where they were shouted down by Brown supporters who accused them of supporting Obama policies that enriched billionaires or corporations – TARP, health care reform. The “Billionaires” really didn’t know how to respond.