HILLARY VULNERABLE ON HEDGE FUNDS

Senator Barack Obama may, at last, have an issue where he is cleanly separate from his two main rivals: hedge fund taxation. With Hillary Clinton leading the pack in donations from the PACs that represent hedge funds — $144,460 for her Senate race, first in the Senate — and another $160,000 for the first two quarters of her presidential campaign, she is uncommitted on reform legislation. Edwards is all for the bill but he’s compromised by his own involvement with the industry.

For his part, Barack Obama has joined in sponsoring the Baucus-Grassley bill hat would remedy many of the more egregious sins of the hedge fund tax structure.

Hillary may also be influenced by the fact that Chelsea works for the Avenue Capital Group, a $12 bilion hedge fund in New York. And as Marc Lasry, the founder and managing partner of the firm indicated: “obviously, what we make is absolutely obscene.”

Could Obama have an issue at long last?