No single company has had its reputation shredded quite like Bank of America over the past few years except for maybe BP, or ‘British Petroleum’ as President Obama likes to call them. Every day another story comes out over their processes around foreclosures and mortgages. Now Nevada and Arizona have filed suit against Bank of America saying it has been deceiving homeowners trying to avoid foreclosure.The worst thing to come out of the suits is the evidence from employees that is damning in the extreme and really casts Bank of America as both the villain and deliberately heartless. Foreclosure is an emotive political issue across the states. The political power of the issue arises from it being such as widespread phenomenon: everybody knows somebody who has been foreclosed and few people take to it happily. We have learned a great deal about the Sub-prime mortgage brokers and their methods and how Countrywide which was bought by BofA in 2008 got sucked into the mess through newspaper commentary and books. Although many feel that Congress and especially the President have let the companies get away with it, the local politicians and Attorney Generals are taking a much more robust view of company misdemenours.

For Bank of America, 2008, 2009, 2010 have been anni horribili. 2011 looks likely to be worse as the company reputation continues to be shredded by film, newspapers and court cases. The big question is whether they can survive with this sort of reputation fall out over the long term. They seem to have suffered the most from the reporting though Chase s chasing hard.

What is especially significant is that much of the damage has been done by their retained suppliers: property managers, mortgage servicers and foreclosure companies. What is clear is that BofA is the one that gets the bum rap!

The White House seems defensive and even apologetic to a growing number of people in the US and they are growing in numbers. The Tea Party Convention is the most striking example of the culmination of anti Obama views. This is a very large group of people against the healthcare plan and the large amount of taxes they are being charged by the Obama government.

Quick to ride the Tea-Party wave is Sarah Palin, who with her appearance as a speaker at the convention, made it clear she has her sights set on the presidency. Palin has been clawing her way out of bad press,  planning out her candidacy  after resigning as governor. She has penned a book and is now a political commentator on FoxNews and the stage was set at the Tea Party Convention when she said…

“This is about the people, and it’s bigger than any king or queen of a Tea Party. And it’s a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter”

Palin took a dig at Obama at the tea party convention and has even gone on to say if its right for America she is ready to run for President in 2012.

“Now a year later, I got to ask the supporters of all that, how is that hope-y, change-y stuff working out for you”

Statements from Palin, quite like the ones used during election campaigns.

Bad press continues: The speaker’s fee of $100,000 paid to Sarah Palin has been in the news and Palin has claimed it does not go to her but to her party’s campaigning fund but this had been dogging her. Other news reports talk of how involved her husband Todd Palin has been in the Alaska governance.

Sarah Palin is simply great bad press material, sometimes ridicule and most importantly great NEWS! One thing’s for sure Palin is everywhere and there she will remain for a long time to come.

As for the Democrats, it will be unwise on their part to take her lightly, the US has elected movie stars like Regan to the White House and even the first mixed race President in Obama, so could a woman be far behind? ?

If Obama bungles up on the healthcare program and the national security issues and continue to remain on the defensive chances are Sarah Palin is right there to take his place.

For now even the Tea Party Convention don’t want her as their leader but in the times we are in, the Democrats better be wary even though Sarah Palin may seem like no Margaret Thatcher or Indira Gandhi!

The Sarah Palin brand chugs on and she as a politician is building up both her celebrity and her reputation.

Two days ago, Obama was reeling from the loss of Teddy Kennedy’s Senate seat to a Republican in what has been a staunch Democrat seat since before time; one speech and he is back on track. His proposals on bank reform will be universally popular simply because, just everybody hates Wall Street. Commentators were suggesting that these proposals are no done deal as they have to pass Congress, but it is hard to see any members of that august institution standing up for the banks. Let’s not forget the epithet attached to Goldman Sachs:  a vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.

Two days ago, Obama suggested that he had been too focused on policy and not enough on connecting with voters. Wrong, he was too focused on the wrong policies. Voters have been aching for some substantive reform of financial institutions since they first bailed them out and then watched aghast as they declared massive profits and equally huge bonuses. Talk about making yourself a target! Bank reputation managers have done a woeful job of presenting Wall Street institutions as contrite and capable of self control.  As the Economist remarked a few months  ago it is not pretty seeing a whole sector committing political suicide.

For Obama, mired in Healthcare reform which has become increasingly partisan and confusing, resolving financial services reform is both long hanging fruit and popular with the electorate. Here is something that everybody agrees needs to be done. It could be argued that the administration’s failure to act on financial services was the problem all along. Voters felt that banks had not felt the pain like the rest of country and it even looked as though Obama and his “wonk” regime wasn’t going to do anything about it.  Timothy Geithner hardly came across as compelling.

The challenge for Obama is whether he can really push this through. His mandate was change and yet that change has become bogged down in increasingly partisan squabbles. Can he build cross-party support for his plans. Using Paul Volcker was a clever touch: he clearly knows his finance, he has been a stern critic of policy and Wall Street and yet he is no liberal softy. Here is the man who solves the inflation problem in the 1980s.

Obama has chosen his battleground well: now he just needs victory.