Obama finds a merger he likes

There's at least one merger Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D.-Ill., supports.

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On the campaign trail, Obama has questioned media mergers, raised "deep concern" about the consolidation in the oil industry and, in an Ohio campaign radio and TV ad, bashed Republican rival John McCain for "helping" foreign-owned DHL International GmbH buy a U.S. company, Airborne Express, in 2003.

The ads about DHL have caused a particular flap among the campaigns. The five-year-old merger has become a hot-button issue in Ohio because a pending DHL joint venture with United Parcel Service Inc. threatens 8,000 former Airborne Express jobs in Wilmington, Del., McCain's campaign manager was a lobbyist for the Airborne Express merger, so the Obama campaign asserts in the ad that McCain shares some blame for DHL gaining "control over the jobs that are now on the chopping block in Ohio."

But Obama has no qualms about supporting deals that work for his hometown of Chicago. Along with Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Obama lauded Tuesday shareholders' approval of the merger of CME Group Inc. and Nymex Holdings Inc., the parent company of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

"The combination of CME Group and NYMEX will bring together the leading financial and agricultural exchange with the leading energy and metals exchange to greatly increase their joint competitiveness in today's fast-growing world trading markets. This merger will strengthen the Chicago financial services community just as the merger of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade did last year," the Illinois duo said. "In the years ahead, this new global market force will continue to innovate and create even more good jobs in the United States and for Illinois." - Bill McConnell

See joint statement from Sen. Durbin and Obama
See story about DHL ad from Pocono Record
See the text of the radio ad from Talking Points Memo

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