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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumBloomberg/October 8, 2015: This Man (Bannon) Is the Most Dangerous Political Operative in America
This Man Is the Most Dangerous Political Operative in AmericaSteve Bannon runs the new vast right-wing conspiracyand he wants to take down both Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush.
By Joshua Green | October 8, 2015
From Bloomberg Businessweek
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Bannons life is a succession of Gatsbyish reinventions that made him rich and landed him squarely in the middle of the 2016 presidential race: Hes been a naval officer, investment banker, minor Hollywood player, and political impresario. When former Disney chief Michael Ovitzs empire was falling to pieces, Bannon sat Ovitz down in his living room and delivered the news that he was finished. When Sarah Palin was at the height of her fame, Bannon was whispering in her ear. When Donald Trump decided to blow up the Republican presidential field, Bannon encouraged his circus-like visit to the U.S.-Mexico border. John Boehner just quit as House speaker because of the mutinous frenzy Bannon and his confederates whipped up among conservatives. Today, backed by mysterious investors and a stream of Seinfeld royalties, he sits at the nexus of what Hillary Clinton once dubbed the vast right-wing conspiracy, where he and his network have done more than anyone else to complicate her presidential ambitionsand they plan to do more. But this conspiracy, at least under Bannon, has mutated into something different from what Clinton described: Its as eager to go after establishment Republicans such as Boehner or Jeb Bush as Democrats like Clinton.
I come from a blue-collar, Irish Catholic, pro-Kennedy, pro-union family of Democrats, says Bannon, by way of explaining his politics. I wasnt political until I got into the service and saw how badly Jimmy Carter f---ed things up. I became a huge Reagan admirer. Still am. But what turned me against the whole establishment was coming back from running companies in Asia in 2008 and seeing that Bush had f---ed up as badly as Carter. The whole country was a disaster.
As befits someone with his peripatetic background, Bannon is a kind of Jekyll-and-Hyde figure in the complicated ecosystem of the righthe's two things at once. And hes devised a method to influence politics that marries the old-style attack journalism of Breitbart.com, which helped drive out Boehner, with a more sophisticated approach, conducted through the nonprofit Government Accountability Institute, that builds rigorous, fact-based indictments against major politicians, then partners with mainstream media outlets conservatives typically despise to disseminate those findings to the broadest audience. The biggest product of this system is the project Bannon was so excited about at CPAC: the bestselling investigative book, written by GAIs president, Peter Schweizer, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. Published in May by HarperCollins, the book dominated the political landscape for weeks and probably did more to shape public perception of Hillary Clinton than any of the barbs from her Republican detractors.
Jeb Bush is about to come in for the same treatment. On Oct. 19, GAI will publish Schweizers e-book, Bush Bucks: How Public Service and Corporations Helped Make Jeb Rich, that examines how Bush enriched himself after leaving the Florida governors mansion in 2007. A copy obtained by Bloomberg Businessweek examines Bushs Florida land deals, corporate board sinecures, and seven-figure salary with Lehman Brothers, whose 2008 bankruptcy touched off the financial crisis. Its not as cinematic as the Clintons, with their warlords and Russian gangsters and that whole cast of bad guys, says Bannon. Bush is more prosaic. Its really just grimy, low-energy crony capitalism.
While attacking the favored candidates in both parties at once may seem odd, Bannon says hes motivated by the same populist disgust with Washington thats animating candidates from Trump to Bernie Sanders. Like both, Bannon is having a bigger influence than anyone could have reasonably expected. But in the Year of the Outsider, it's perhaps fitting that a figure like Bannon, whom nobody saw coming, would roil the national political debate.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2015-steve-bannon/
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