Obama Bites the Brahmin Hands that Feed Him

Felix Salmon recently made some snide remarks about private equity and venture capitalists:

IPOs, like leveraged buyouts, are financial tools used by financial professionals to make money. Those financial professionals surely like to think of themselves as job creators. But their real job is to make money, not jobs. [emphasis added]

These remarks are almost certainly a swipe at Mitt Romney, echoing the charges being made by the Obama team against Romney's activities at Bain. For example, in his recent press conference, the President said:

But understand that their priority is to maximize profits. And that’s not always going to be good for communities or businesses or workers…And when you’re president, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everyone in the country has a fair shot. Your job is to think about those workers who get laid off and how are we paying for their retraining? Your job is to think about how those communities can start creating new clusters so they can attract new businesses. Your job as president is to think about how do we set up an equitable tax system so that everybody is paying their fair share that allows us then to invest in science and technology and infrastructure, all of which will help us grow. And so, if your main argument for how to grow the economy is, ‘I knew how to make a lot of money for investors, then you’re missing what this job is about.’ [emphasis added]

What the Progressives don't realize is that by attacking Romney's activities at Bain, they are essentially demonizing the entire private equity and venture capital community. This community has deep roots in California and has been a faithful donor to Democratic political causes there and nationwide. Furthermore, one of the most prominent members of the private equity community is Richard Blum, Chairman and President of Blum Capital, one of San Francisco's most widely respected private equity/leveraged buyout firms. Mr. Blum is also the husband of California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein.

We can imagine the brahmins of the California private equity and VC community are not pleased by President Obama's demonization of them. That is likely why Senator Feinstein has been so dismissive of President Obama's attacks on Bain. Said Feinstein of the attacks: "It’s done. Go on to other things now."

The ineptitude and hypocrisy of the Obama team and his Progressive backers is remarkable. First they turned their Wall Street donors against them with their attacks on "fat cat bankers." Now, with their sneering characterizations of venture capitalists as "finance professionals who like to think of themselves as job creators," they are starting to insult their California VC and private equity donors.

Maybe next time President Obama makes one of his fly-ins to Moffett Field and snarls traffic all up and down the Peninsula while being whisked to his latest Silicon Valley fundraising dinner, one of the VC brahmins who ends up sitting at the dais next to him can tell him to stuff a sock in it and let him know that Silicon Valley is proud of its VC-backed economy. We are not, after all, Michigan.