by Mark Silva
In the money chase, there are grassroots and there is professional greening.
Now that Sen. Barack Obama is free from the limit of public campaign financing for the fall election, his campaign is courting its broad base of donors to flex their muscles before July Fourth -- showing their "independence'' from "a broken system'' of public campaign financing, as manager David Plouffe put it in an email to supporters.
They are looking for 50,000 donors to weigh in by July Fourth. Their argument for breaking away from the limit of public financing is that Sen. John McCain will be tapping not only his own campaign's resources, but also those of the Republican National Committee -- and will benefit from the backing of outside "527" committees. So they plan to compete, dollar for dollar, and are likely to do very well on that score, considering their fundraising prowess so far.
Still, top-dollar fundraisers figure into any campaign's strategy, and, as our colleagues at Top of the Ticket note, the Obama campaign brought some of Hillary Clinton's donors together with their own for a meeting at the Palmer House in Chicago this week. Obama has become the first major party candidate in decades to forgo public money and the limits that come with it from the convention to the election, and now these fundraisers are free to flex some of their own muscles.
A half-dozen of Clinton's major fundraisers assembled with Obama at the Palmer House, according to the L.A. Times' Dan Morain. Among them: John B. Emerson of Capital Guardian Trust Company in Los Angeles, Thomas F. Steyer of Farallon Capital Management in San Francisco and Gary Gensler, who was Treasury undersecretary under President Clinton. Also: Maureen White, formerly top fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee, and Michael Coles, who ran for the U.S. Senate from Georgia and is chief executive officer of Caribou Coffee.
Clinton, meanwhile, has called on 100 of her top bundlers of campaign contributions to meet with her and Obama next week at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. See the account at L.A.'s Top of the Ticket.
• 
• 
• 
Comments
So much for change huh? I dont want to hear one more OBama supporter use the change mantra because it has been proven to be just a slogan by the events of the last 2 days. Obama will now be the first contender since Nixon who was bought and paid for with private money. I dont want to hear anything about lobbyists because the public money 100% eliminates that. THe 527 excuse is as lame as it gets. THere are more Democratic 527 than Republicans. Moveon.org and THe union Obama met with yesterday are just 2 of them. Noone is saying that his supporters cant vote for him but they can no longer use change as a mantra. This move by Obama is right out of the Chicago Machine playbook. Blagoevich, Daley, Stroger, Jones, and Madigan would be proud.
Posted by: Vinny | June 20, 2008 7:22 AM
Obama made the right decision. The Republican Party will raise more than the Democrats and the 527's will raise tons of cash to claw at Obama's back. He will need to raise outside the public funding system to counter the attacks that the Republicans are going to launch.
Informed voters will understand this issue and side with Obama especially after the attacks start.
Posted by: McClum | June 20, 2008 7:55 AM
Obama's got a fine line to walk here. One the one hand, he's going to need more money than McCain does because he's a newcomer and McCain has name recognition borne out of two prior presidential runs and a lifetime in the Senate. On the other hand, if Obama raises too much money or raises it from the wrong sorts of people and organizations, it works against his change message as the Republicans are all too happy to point out.
Posted by: Michael | June 20, 2008 8:00 AM
Obama would have been glad to go the public financing route if McCain could promise that his undercover hit squad of 527's didn't raise money as a proxy for McCain's campaign to attack Obama. Also, the Republican National Committee will raise tons of cash to and use it to attack Obama.
McCain would not make a fair deal so, of course Obama didn't play his rigged game
The Republicans are upset because so many Americans feel strong enough about supporting Obama to reach into their wallets and contribute. There are 1.5 million Americans who have donated $ to Obama's campaign and the number of donors is growing.
I hope Obama raises at an even faster pace. He will need the cash to counter the 527's.
Posted by: McCllum | June 20, 2008 8:11 AM
It's always about the money.
My favorite lines from the Untouchable:
"If he puts one of your guys in the hospital, you put one of his in the morgue....That's the Chicago way."
Maybe all too apropos.
Posted by: Todd M | June 20, 2008 10:14 AM
All liberals can you just say Obama lied when he said he would be for public financing of his Presidential campaign. This liberals is not the first or the last lie by Obama before November 4 general election.
He broke his word Obama did.
Liberals can you say Liar, Liar pants on fire to Obama?
Don't post poor Obama stories.
What's poor about Obama?Obama is the bully on the playground not McCain! Jerry White, Springfield, IL
Posted by: Jerry White | June 20, 2008 10:25 AM
As Usual Obama tells us one thing and does the opposite.
He sanctimoniously bleats about reform and a new way of practicing politics, but then rakes in big money from sources like banking, big oil, agribusiness and from various bundlers. Plus he employs major corporate lobbyists on his campaign staff.
There's nothing new in Obama's politics at all... it's campaigning in the long-established Chicago Machine tradition.
Posted by: MJ | June 20, 2008 10:27 AM