HIGHLAND PARK, ILL.–A varied menu cooked up Wednesday in the Obama clip kitchen:
The Wall Street Journal dives into the Obama team’s micro targeting drive for new teen voters who will be eligible to vote in the Iowa caucus.
My deep digging Sun-Times investigative colleague, Tim Novak, writes about how the value of a vacant lot next to the Obama homestead (once owned by the tainted Tony Rezko’s wife) is for sale and has jumped in value. LINK
The New York Sun reports the Obama campaign–on a drive to rid Washington of lobbyists influence– hired a tax lobbyist as an adviser. This as the Senate is dealing with a proposed tax hike on private equity firms
WASHINGTON Senator Obama of Illinois is blaming Washington lobbyists for stalling a proposed tax hike on private equity firms, but he can look no further than his own campaign team for one of the culprits.
The Democratic presidential candidate recently hired a top executive at the lobbying firm retained by the Blackstone Group to urge lawmakers against raising its taxes. The executive, Moses Mercado, is not yet on the campaign payroll as an adviser, but he took a leave from his job as a senior vice president at Ogilvy Government Relations late last month LINK
Scott Helman of the Boston Globe overview on the 2008 politics behind the tax proposal
Following this morning’s report in The Washington Post that the Senate is unlikely to pass a tax hike on private-equity firms, Barack Obama and John Edwards are both trying to use the issue to differentiate themselves from Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner.
Critics of the current tax structure for private-equity outfits say such firms benefit by having some of their earnings taxed as capital gains instead of income — a far lower rate. But the industry has battled a tax overhaul mightily, saying it would damage the economy. For now, it appears they’ve succeeded.
Even though Clinton, too, favors the tax hike, Obama and Edwards used the opportunity to pounce on what they see as a liability of Clinton’s. Obama seized on Clinton’s recent remarks that lobbyists “represent real Americans.”
Hearst columnist Marianne Means writes Obama needs to step it up LINK http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/334833_means10.html