[Rabbahpuptiopp]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/us...l?ref=politics

Obama Seeks to Win Back Wall St. Cash

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Published: June 12, 2011

WASHINGTON — A few weeks before announcing his re-election campaign, President Obama convened two dozen Wall Street executives, many of them longtime donors, in the White House’s Blue Room.

The guests were asked for their thoughts on how to speed the economic recovery, then the president opened the floor for over an hour on hot issues like hedge fund regulation and the deficit.

Mr. Obama, who enraged many financial industry executives a year and a half ago by labeling them “fat cats” and criticizing their bonuses, followed up the meeting with phone calls to those who could not attend.

The event, organized by the Democratic National Committee, kicked off an aggressive push by Mr. Obama to win back the allegiance of one of his most vital sources of campaign cash — in part by trying to convince Wall Street that his policies, far from undercutting the investor class, have helped bring banks and financial markets back to health.

Last month, Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, traveled to New York for back-to-back meetings with Wall Street donors, ending at the home of Marc Lasry, a prominent hedge fund manager, to court donors close to Mr. Obama’s onetime rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton. And Mr. Obama will return to New York this month to dine with bankers, hedge fund executives and private equity investors at the Upper East Side restaurant Daniel.

“The first goal was to get recognition that the administration has led the economy from an unimaginably difficult place to where we are today,” said Blair W. Effron, an investment banker closely involved in Mr. Obama’s fund-raising efforts. “Now the second goal is to turn that into support.”

[AlexanderDrew]

Right, because in 2010...


Wall Street donations favour Republicans

By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington
Published: August 11 2010 00:19 | Last updated: August 11 2010 00:19
Wall Street executives are donating nearly 70 per cent of their political contributions to Republican candidates ahead of November’s mid-term elections, representing a significant shift in allegiances across an industry that has in recent history heavily favoured Democrats.
Why? Because....

The shift coincided with the intense debate on Capitol Hill over financial services reform, legislation that was passed in July, (2010). Individuals working in the financial industry favoured Republicans by a 7 to 10 margin in June. In early 2009, however, $6 of every $10 spent by individual donors favoured Democrats. http://is.gd/YQ0EWa