No, not Michael Bloomberg, Barack Obama:
Bracing for a half-billion-dollar onslaught of outside GOP cash in 2012, President Barack Obama’s advisers are quietly working to bring back together the major donor base that produced a record-breaking fundraising haul in his first run for president….
“They are getting organized in Chicago to start a massive two-year campaign, which I believe will be successful, but has extraordinarily large challenges in some of the major states,” said Philadelphia philanthropist Peter Buttenweiser, who hosted one of the first Obama presidential fundraisers in 2007 and is in talks to organize an early one for the re-election.
Obama’s team is running into resistance in at least one key fundraising hub — New York City, where some of Obama’s biggest 2008 backers have bitterly protested last year’s passage of financial reform legislation and what they perceived as an unfair bad-mouthing of bankers during the debate.
Obama was scheduled to go to New York this week to meet with about 25 large bundlers and supporters – and maybe clear the air – but that event was canceled after the Tucson shootings at the congressional event of Rep.Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), according to one prominent New York fundraiser.
So Obama plans to counter a half-billion dollar “onslaught” with a billion dollars. Sounds like he wants to bring a gun to a knife fight, but as the article linked above makes clear, it’s not going well — yet — with the big money interests who helped finance his 2008 campaign.
And yes, big money interests did finance Obama’s 2008 campaign, so please put that myth to rest. The supposed king of small donors actually relied just as heavily on big donors as other candidates in the past:
Despite attracting millions of new contributors to his campaign, President-elect Barack Obama received about the same percentage of his total political funds from small donors as President Bush did in 2004, according to a study released today by the non-partisan Campaign Finance Institute.
The analysis undercuts Obama’s claim that his supporters “changed the way campaigns are funded” by reducing the influence of special-interest givers.
“The myth is that money from small donors dominated Barack Obama’s finances,” said Michael Malbin, the institute’s executive director. “The reality of Obama’s fundraising was impressive, but the reality does not match the myth.”
It may be time for the Obama campaign to turn off the security features on the credit card operation, again.
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