Wall Street Is Still Trying to Buy Obama’s Love

President Obama and the Democratic National Committee have raised more from the financial industry than all the Republican candidates combined. However, without the DNC, Mitt Romney has raised almost twice as much as the president from that sector, according to analysis by The Washington Post.

Republican candidates such as Romney are not yet able to utilize their party’s fundraising potential, giving Obama an advantage.

Glenn Greenwald points out that the president lags behind his 2008 Wall Street fundraising and, as The Washington Post reports, only “5 percent of the $90 million Obama’s campaign committee has raised this year came from finance and banking interests.”

There is a perception, amplified in the political press, that Obama has alienated the finance industry with heated rhetoric and lukewarm reforms.

But one anonymous banking executive tells the Post that this perception is overblown, if politically advantageous:

One top banking executive who raises money for Obama, discussing fundraising efforts on the condition of anonymity, said reports of disaffection with the president “are exaggerated and overblown.” He said a strong contingent of financiers in New York, Chicago and California remains supportive of Obama and his economic policies, even as some have turned on him.

But, this donor added, “… It probably helps from a political perspective if he’s not seen as a Wall Street guy.”

You can pore over the data yourself and come to your own conclusions at the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org. — PZS