July 19, 2010 11:12 PM UTC

Rolling Stone and David Sirota call out Bennet about vote change

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• by: MikeD1970

(Matt Taibbi gives this story credibility (IMO) – promoted by DavidThi808)

This was going to be cross-posted on squarestate.net, but I see their administrator already has the story up.  Good for them jumping on this topic so quickly.

Huffington Post blogger (and of course syndicated Radio show host and author) David Sirota joins Rolling Stone in discussing Bennet’s seemingly odd vote switch:

While getting caught on camera is certainly clumsy, Bennet’s calculation makes a certain kind of (grotesque) sense – he is among the top recipients of financial industry cash in the Senate, but also running in a contested Democratic primary at a time when core Democratic voters in particular despise Wall Street. He, out of any senator, has a particular interest in trying to simultaneously look like a courageous populist to voters and a reliable corporatist to his big campaign donors.

The vote in question here is regarding consumer protection against the credit card industry.  Senators Bennet and Udall both voted no, but then waited and changed their vote.  It appears as if they did this after consulting party leadership and seeing the vote would ultimately fail regardless of their vote.

Rolling Stone has a fully story as well, with this to say of the legislation:

The short version of this story: Bernie Sanders had put forth a proposal in the Senate to put a 15 percent cap on credit-card interest. Who isn’t in favor of this kind of legislation? The only difference between credit card companies and loan sharks at this point is that you can choose to not patronize a loan shark. As an adult professional in this country one has to have a credit card – it’s impossible to rent a car, buy a hotel room, shop online or do countless other things without one.

I would agree that this looks very bad for the two Senators.  This was a measure that would have helped those of us suffering from credit card debt — debt which was incurred in many cases — because those companies changed agreements only after consumers had acquired debt.  

I think of it this way: if I borrow from a mobster, I expect that they might break my legs if I’m slow in paying them, or might even break my legs if I am paying on time.  These credit card companies are now operating like mobsters, breaking legs even if payments are met on time.

This is especially bad for Senator Bennet, as primary voters this month may not be too keen on his odd change.  Not to miss an opportunity, the Romanoff campaign was quick to pounce:

“The general public has no idea what goes on in the name of political self-preservation,” said Romanoff spokesman Roy Teicher. “This is why people hate Washington, and this video makes their case swiftly.”