CAF In The News

realclearpolitics.com — They captured the White House under a mantra of "change" and scored big House and Senate gains promising a "new direction."

Now Democrats have to figure out how to fulfill those lofty promises without alienating the very people who handed them the keys to the government for the first time in more than a decade.

rollcall.com — Oh so nearly — but not quite — jumping the gun on its celebration, the liberal Campaign for America’s Future announced Tuesday afternoon that it will hold press conferences Wednesday and Friday to “outline the mandate defined in today’s elections.”

Wednesday’s event is a conference call to “release a new report on the themes and issue positions that united successful federal candidates.” High on the list will be talk of universal health care, clean energy and Obama’s tax plan. Friday’s event will feature results of post-election polls about major electoral themes by Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg.

careerjournal.com — A phalanx of liberal think tanks and interest groups -- anticipating a Democratic victory on Tuesday -- are mobilizing to push Sen. Barack Obama to the left of his campaign positions.

In recent weeks, groups have held conferences, drafted policy papers and lobbied campaign advisers in the hope of influencing what they believe would be the most receptive administration to the political left since Jimmy Carter. The Obama campaign declined to comment about pressure from liberal policy groups.

washingtonindependent.com — Who knew, eight years ago, that compassionate conservatism would include the partial nationalization of the banking industry?

It happened today, and some supporters of Sen. Barack Obama hope the new wave of broader federal regulation will spill over into the health-care debate.

In an ad in today’s New York Times, the Institute for America’s Future, a liberal watchdog group, warns that Sen. John McCain’s health-care plan might do for patients what deregulation of the finance industry has done for homeowners and investors.

americanbanker.com — Banks are ramping up public relations efforts to calm consumers panicked by the credit crisis - and to distinguish themselves from the string of big-name institutions that have gone out of business.

Raymond P. Davis, the chief executive officer of Umpqua Holdings Corp. in Portland, Ore., posted a letter to customers Monday on the $8.3 billion-asset company's Web site and at teller counters in its branches.

"Although the current environment is unlike anything we've seen in many years, it's important to remember that it won't last forever," Mr. Davis wrote. "And we will continue to operate our company as we have for five decades - as a community bank committed to serving the communities we serve with financial resources that help them grow."

ft.com — This week, America discovered class war. Newt Gingrich denounced the Treasury's $700bn plan to flush the toxic debt off Wall Street balance sheets as a "very, very bad idea" and accused the White House of being bamboozled by its ex-Goldman Sachs advisers.

John McCain railed against CEO "greed" and said no boss of a corporation bailed out by the government should "be making more money than the highest paid government official". Rupert Murdoch's New York Post newspaper ran a two-inch-high front-page headline that simply read: "FRAUD ST". And that's just the voices on the right.

philly.com — Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke made a compelling case yesterday that the economy and the financial markets were in grave danger without a massive government bailout.

But will the bailout erase that danger?

"Just because they buy these assets, that doesn't mean the economy is going to come back, and people are going buy houses again," said R. Brian Wenzinger, a partner and portfolio manager at Center City money manager Aronson, Johnson & Ortiz L.P.

eandppub.com — New York Times readers today found a ransom note in their newspaper. The Institute for America's Future (IAF) put an eye-catching graphic on top of its op-ed ad about the proposed Wall Street bailout. The graphic reads, in cut-out words: "Give us $85 billion or the economy gets whacked."

washingtonpost.com — When newly appointed White House chief of staff Joshua B. Bolten tried to shake up the Bush administration in the spring of 2006, he spent weeks wooing Goldman Sachs chief executive Henry M. Paulson Jr. to be Treasury secretary. Bolten had personal reasons for thinking Paulson might be a good pick -- Bolten himself had worked for the influential investment bank in Europe in the 1990s -- and Paulson eventually gave in to his persistent lobbying.

"I had always trusted him," Paulson once said of Bolten in an interview. "I felt a bond and a sense of trust."

abcnews.go.com — John McCain came under fire on Friday from defenders of the current Social Security system after his aides signaled to the Associated Press that the current market turmoil has not altered his support for changing the retirement program to allow individuals to invest some portion of their Social Security payroll taxes in stocks and bonds.

"His midnight conversion from aggressive deregulator to market critic is apparently incomplete," said Jared Bernstein, the senior economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute.