Wall Street may be planning on backing Hillary Clinton in '16 -- if Jeb Bush doesn't run

The biggest parlor game on Wall Street and in corporate boardrooms these days is guessing whether former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will run for president and save the GOP’s old establishment base from its rising populist wing.

The second most popular game is guessing what happens if Jeb says no.

Two dozen interviews about the 2016 race with unaligned GOP donors, financial executives and their Washington lobbyists turned up a consistent — and unusual — consolation candidate if Bush demurs, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie doesn’t recover politically and no other establishment favorite gets nominated: Hillary Clinton.

Most donors and Wall Street titans have not lined up with any candidate yet, waiting for the field to take shape after the midterms. But if Bush doesn’t run, the list of Republican saviors could be short. Some donors fear Christie will never overcome the Bridgegate scandal. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin so far seems more inclined to stay in the House than to run for president. And to varying degrees, other candidates — such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Govs. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio — are either unknown or untrusted.

The darkest secret in the big money world of the Republican coastal elite is that the most palatable alternative to a nominee such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas or Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky would be Clinton, a familiar face on Wall Street following her tenure as a New York senator with relatively moderate views on taxation and financial regulation.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/wall-street-republicans-hillary-clinton-2016-106070.html

I don't think this is good news for U.S. liberals ...

Ben_Reilly wrote:

The biggest parlor game on Wall Street and in corporate boardrooms these days is guessing whether former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will run for president and save the GOP’s old establishment base from its rising populist wing.

The second most popular game is guessing what happens if Jeb says no.

Two dozen interviews about the 2016 race with unaligned GOP donors, financial executives and their Washington lobbyists turned up a consistent — and unusual — consolation candidate if Bush demurs, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie doesn’t recover politically and no other establishment favorite gets nominated: Hillary Clinton.

Most donors and Wall Street titans have not lined up with any candidate yet, waiting for the field to take shape after the midterms. But if Bush doesn’t run, the list of Republican saviors could be short. Some donors fear Christie will never overcome the Bridgegate scandal. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin so far seems more inclined to stay in the House than to run for president. And to varying degrees, other candidates — such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Govs. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio — are either unknown or untrusted.

The darkest secret in the big money world of the Republican coastal elite is that the most palatable alternative to a nominee such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas or Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky would be Clinton, a familiar face on Wall Street following her tenure as a New York senator with relatively moderate views on taxation and financial regulation.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/wall-street-republicans-hillary-clinton-2016-106070.html

I don't think this is good news for U.S. liberals ...

Why?  The Republican Party is trash today.  It was in the last election too, only the press can't get their head around it.  The Republican candidate will be defined by what s/he says to win a primary battle.  In order to do that, s/he will have to wander over into tea party mud, leaving a trail of quotes by which s/he will be murdered in the general election campaign.

Mitt Romney was the test case for this.  His aide said he will have no problem because after the primary it's like an etch-a-sketch...everything is erased and you get to start anew:

CNN wrote:Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney's senior campaign adviser, was asked in a CNN interview Wednesday morning whether the former Massachusetts governor had been forced to adopt conservative positions in the rugged [primary] race that could hurt his standing with moderates in November's general election.

"I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes," Fehrnstrom responded. "It's almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again."

In passing, note how casually conservatives adopt lying as a tactic.  But, the mendacity tactic didn't work, and Romney got peppered all through the general campaign with the bullshit he had dropped during the primary.  It's what you get when your political-economic ideology moves too far away from the voters: If you don't please your base, you don't get nominated; don't please the general electorate, you don't get elected.

Congressman Paul Ryan, who was Mitt Romney's Vice-presidential candidate in 2012, will be painted by the same brush as Romney.  He will also finish himself off in the primary races.

A Bush (i.e., Jeb) will never get the nomination, and/or if he does, a Bush never gets elected president again.  The name is too tarnished.  

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Govs. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio are lightweights who will make slips and leave themselves looking foolish.  You have only to recall Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and "..uh, uh, what were the departments I would eliminate??"

Ted Cruz, the senator from Canada, would please the hell out of the tea party, and promptly get left over there in the general.

NJ Gov. Chris Christy is a felon in the making.  You can't run the White House from a federal prison.  

Christy will be tried and convicted, but not for Bridgegate.  He will be indicted for racketeering under the RICO law: "[Racketeering is] a pattern of illegal activity carried out as part of an enterprise that is owned or controlled by those who are engaged in the illegal activity. The latter definition derives from the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corruption Organizations Act (RICO), a set of laws (18 U.S.C.A. § 1961 et seq. [1970]) specifically designed to punish racketeering by business enterprises."  http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Racketeering

Already under investigation by the Federal Attorney in New Jersey, Christy will be found guilty of misusing federal Hurricane Sandy recovery funds, diverting the money to certain private real estate projects around the state.  Christy argues that the funds were being used to rebuild NJ, but folks are asking, for who's profit?  That's the way Christy plays politics in the sandbox.

The Clintons are liberals who nonetheless are popular with Wall Street.  Remember in the last days, President Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, the super oil mover?  Economist Lawrence Summers was appointed Bubba's Sec. of Treasury.  So was conservative economist Robert Rubin.  The Clintons always curried favour with money...they went to Yale University, after all.

Ms. Clinton is more conservative than Obama, but she will still enjoy the adverse effect of a Republican Party in ruins, same as any Democrat.  Ms. Clinton is by far the front runner. The saving grace is that Elizabeth Warren, Senator from Massachusetts, might run as Vice-president. Incidentally, so might Wendy Davis. Both would be exciting.

Just don't like the idea of the left-most electable candidate being that cozy with Wall Street, tbh. But it's not like Obama's been that much better.

Right.  TARP funds and all.  

But the Wall Street folks represent the moderate wing of the Republican side; they are the former upper East Side silk-stocking liberal Republicans...or what's left of them.

The tea party has disaffected a lot of people.  Wall street is to be distinguished from the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson. who come from specific industries and could care less about the state of the economy.  Wall Street needs a functioning government and as little disruption as possible.  Republican affinity for war, spending money and, on the other hand, closing down government without paying bills, leaves Wall Street a bit nervous.