A funny thing happens when you take on Wall Street:
It’s a humbling moment for Democratic moneymakers in the richest city in the world, an uncomfortable and unfamiliar position for New York fundraisers after a long ride on the gravy train. Beyond a free-flowing financial market that managed to rebound after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, there were 16 flush years of having a Clinton family member in a position of power and working the Big Apple donor base hard.
Things are different now. While most Democrats blame the economy and anger from Wall Street for the fundraising predicament, President Barack Obama, whose own donor model was low-dollar contributors and Internet contributors over high-dollar types, has headlined just one major New York event so far this year, for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
And several fundraisers said they knew of very few major events in the Hamptons — the summer playground for the wealthy that was long worked by the Clintons, who used it for simultaneous socializing, vacationing and rainmaking for the national party committees.
Some Democrats called it the worst period for fundraising they’ve experienced in the New York area since 1994…
There’s a big donor model and a small donor model. And there are hybrids, which is, in truth, what Obama used to fund his campaign. Now a big chunk of Obama’s high donors are pissed off. If that makes him less beholden to Big Money then I’d count it as a blessing. But small donors will have to pick up the slack.
to them that NOW is the time to look at public funding??
Do you notice something? They hedged their bets. Times were good(mostly) under Clinton, so people didn’t care. Also, the internet wasn’t what it is now. And people now expect results. They won’t except being thrown an irrelevant bone anymore. I have to wonder what Obama(and by extension Rahm) thought would happen? Did they really think that Wall Sreet friendly reforms would work? That the public wouldn’t demand a pound of flesh from Wall Street?
Calvim, I would think you would be pleased by this news. Would you, personally, consider throwing a couple of dollars to a Dem who vote for Wall Street reform and pissed off their big money donors? To reward good Dem behavior? Or does that go against your image of yourself as a pure, noble gadfly?
Sadly, I don’t have the money right now. But I have in the past, and I would again. I was one of those that gave money to Kissell, before he became an embarrassment. I gave $100 to Webb after he gave that SOTU rebuttal. And have wondered where that Jim Webb has gone ever since. And no that’s not all I’ve given, they are just examples.
Well, I respect that you have put your money where your mouth is in the past. It is funny about Webb – he has kept a pretty low profile since being elected and I think kept to the conservative end of the spectrum. But he was always fairly conservative, right? I didn’t really follow that race so I don’t know. I do remember him announcing some big prison reform project that sounded impressive, but haven’t heard anything on that front for a long time.
I expected him to be conservative on cultural issues .. but not on economic issues … and after all .. his hero was Andrew Jackson .. and for all Andrew Jackson’s faults(and there were many) .. Jackson took on the banksters(aka Federal Reserve of his day) of his day and won
Lol, Jackson taking on the banks was a personal vendetta. Same as Jefferson. They were both mired in debt and hated banks for it; not to mention they had some bullshit view of how America should be driven by farming.
The fact is that Jackson and Jefferson had the wrong view on a national bank, and Hamilton was correct, especially considering Canada’s banking system is modeled after Hamilton’s view.
The other thing, if he(and places like the DNC, DCCC, and DSCC) are going to have to rely more on small funding, that means catering to us small people. Are they ready for that? Does Obama know why people put the DNC on the shitlist after Howard Dean left?
the ‘ little people’ want things in return for their money too.
I think that may say more about New York (the whole Mideast mess) than big donors in general. Obama has big donor support from Chicago and California right? The kind of big donors who philosophically are more aligned with the Obama admin agenda than having him follow theirs.