Romney's Corporate Pandering Unlikely To Win Crucial Votes

The recent negative publicity concerning the huge losses at JP Morgan are a reminder to all that even with the Dodd-Frank financial industry reforms the fall out from the 2008 financial crash is still lingering on. Despite the reform regulations being in place for 2 years now many observers have noted that Mitt Romney and the GOP are wrong to simply dismiss the JP Morgan losses as 'not a concern'.

In a recent Politico article, Michael S. Barr argues that Romney's vow to repeal the financial reforms if elected as president is a mistake. Barr points out that by vowing to repeal the reforms Romney appears to want to forget the lessons of the financial crisis. He writes "Romney and many Republicans in Congress are determined to forget the lessons of the crisis by repealing rules that could address the weaknesses in our regulatory system that allowed the financial crisis to happen."

It's no secret that the Republicans aren't big fans of any type of regulation - especially when the opportunity to receive vital campaign funding from a particular industry is up for grabs. The GOP's 'free market enterprise' mandate appears to have struck a chord with the bundlers on Wall St. who have switched their allegiance from the Democrats since the reforms have became law. Barr even goes on to add that "Romney suggested last week that he wasn't even concerned by the JP Morgan losses."

Barr also points out that "Regulators need to finish the job of implementing these and other key provisions as quickly and robustly as possible". By making this important observation it suggests that the other parts of the Dodd-Frank Act that are still being drafted would likely favor the low to middle income American tax payer more than the medium to high income taxpayer, a category that many of Romney's potential financial bakers fall into.

After making and not backtracking his remarks about the '47% of Americans who feel they are entitled to receive something from the government' Romney's bid to be elected as president looks more unlikely than ever before. If alienating nearly half of the electorate seems like a good idea Romney must have something ultra special up his sleeve for the remainder of the presidential election campaign. The bulk of traditional Republican support has always been in the form of the wealthy middle to upper class.

The recent erosion of that demographic certainly won't help his campaign when it comes to winning votes. It appears that Romney is spending too much time pleasing his potential campaign donors, and not enough time pleasing potential voters. Maybe Romney needs a subtle reminder that getting votes is more important that getting corporate campaign donations?