No matter how tight things get, Sandra and I will have to dig up a few bucks for the Obama re-election campaign. I know, our contribution will be like a drop in the ocean of cash he needs to contend with Mitt Romney’s billionaire backers, but if enough of us chip in, who knows how much it could add up to?
That’s really his only hope this time. Wall Street has abandoned him. The activist left is sulking. Even billionaire George Soros is less than enthusiastic about funding the Obama campaign. Soros has pledged just $2 million to support President Obama’s reelection. In 2004, he gave $23.7 million to Democratic political groups.
I could sulk, too. I think the president’s financial problems are partly his own fault. He tried to play nice with the Republicans and their big shot backers. And did that win him any friends among the elite? Of course not! All he managed to do was make his political base mad at him. Writing in Salon,com today, Andrew Leonard observes that “not only has Wall St. shifted its support to Romney, but liberals have stopped giving to the president as well.”
Leonard points out how unfair this is. He notes that:
Obama continued George W. Bush’s bailout of the financial sector, has failed to prosecute any Wall Street executives for crimes related to the financial crisis, extended Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, passed an extremely mild piece of bank reform legislation and let the banks get away with murder on the housing/foreclosure crisis.
But the president should’ve known better than to expect gratitude from the banking class. They demand total servitude, nothing less.
President Obama had the nerve to say “a few mean things about Wall Street fat cats, and he supports, in theory, higher taxes for the rich,” Leonard notes. And for that, the president is accused of “class warfare.”
Leonard reports:
Financial sector donations to Romney and his super PAC currently total $37.1 million. To Obama — $4.8 million. A significant proportion of (Romney’s) cash is coming from moguls who supported Obama in 2008.
Leonard adds:
The New York Times reports that in May, Romney and his backers raised $76.8 million — $17 million more than Obama. Obama is getting especially clobbered in super PAC contributions : On Tuesday morning, the Wall Street Journal reported that casino magnate Sheldon Adelson (photo aove) contributed another $10 million to the Romney-affilated super Pac Restore Our Future.
So the liberals are sitting on their wallets, and the conservatives are contributing as never before. With the Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited corporate contributions to political campaigns, the floodgates are open and Republicans are awash in cash.
Adelson, for example, has told friends he is prepared to pny up to $100 million to help Republicans win in November. That’s the kind of money Romney has available to him. And that’s the kind of donor providing it.
And of course you know about the infamous Koch brothers, who are spending billions to get their legislative agenda enacted.
The inevitable result is an Obama defeat – unless we foot soldiers join the fray. We might not have a lot of financial clout individually, but there are a lot of us, and as we Jamaicans say, “one-one coco full basket.”
I don’t know about you but I am filled with dread by the prospect of a Romney presidency (especially with the kind of characters who are financing him). So, if you’ve got some loose change around the house, you might want to put it in an envelope and send it to the president.
He’s going to need it.
