Follow the money trail from his campaign. Do you think The banks and corporations give money to Obama because they are just super nice people who are in the habit of giving free money away?
The puppet master thing is kind of dumb. Look at the tons of money spent to get Romney and other conservative candidates elected this past election. When you really think about it there was very little bang for the buck for the would've been puppet masters on that side of the ledger.
So long as Citizens United continues to be the law of the land and there are no term limits politicians of every stripe and persuasion are going to have puppet masters.