Report: Obama Successfully Wooing Some Former Hillary Donors

[ProSense]

Report: Obama Successfully Wooing Some Former Hillary Donors

By Greg Sargent | bio

Today's New York Times reports that Barack Obama's chief fundraisers are having some success wooing former Hillary Clinton donors:

The Obama campaign has already attracted a number of fund-raisers with ties to Mrs. Clinton or her husband, like Orin Kramer, a prominent hedge fund manager from New Jersey, and James S. Rubin, a private equity manager and son of Robert E. Rubin, the former Treasury secretary. The younger Mr. Rubin was also a finance director for New York during President Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, and held positions at the Federal Communications Commission during the second Clinton administration.

Other former Clintonites who are raising money for Mr. Obama include Joshua L. Steiner, a private equity principal; Michael Froman, a Citigroup executive; and Brian Mathis of Provident Group. All of them are young (in their 40s) and served in senior positions in Mr. Clinton’s Treasury Department a decade ago (Mr. Froman and Mr. Mathis were friends with Mr. Obama at Harvard Law School). Another high-profile Obama fund-raiser is Earl G. Graves, the publisher of Black Enterprise magazine, who in 2000 was listed by the White House as an overnight guest of the Clintons.

The paper says that the bulk of New York’s traditional Democratic donor establishment — Robert Zimmerman, Alan Patricof, Steven Rattner, Hassan Nemazee, etc. — is backing Hillary. But the Obama campaign is hoping to compensate for this, the paper reports, by drawing from "pools that barely existed four years ago, particularly hedge fund and private-equity fund principals who only recently acquired their money and their interest in the political process." The Obama campaign is hoping that people in these worlds might be receptive to Obama's argument that it's time for generational change in this country's leadership, and that's the argument his fundraisers are making to them in their pitches. Seems noteworthy.

Meanwhile, in other fundraising news, The Hill reports today that the FEC is slated to give the thumbs-up next week to Obama's request that he be allowed to raise money from private donors for the 2008 general election and later refund the cash and opt into the public financing system should his GOP opponent do the same.

[David Dunham]

1. Edwards will emerge as Hillary's main rival, not Obama

Obama in 2008 is like Edwards in 2004 -- an interesting candidate but lacking sufficient experience to get most primary voters to vote for him in a political era with significant national security concerns. Still, Obama's 2008 run is useful for him because it helps him for 2012.

[Connie_Corleone]

4. Is Edwards planning on losing in 2008?

Because that's the only way Obama will have a chance of winning the nomination in 2012. Otherwise, you're talking about 2016.

Obama '08!

[David Dunham]

5. Edwards 08 will in the end go farther than Obama 08

[geek tragedy]

6. Obama has vastly superior foreign policy judgment.

Obama was 100% right on Iraq, John Edwards and Joe Lieberman were 100% wrong.

Edwards hasn't done anything since 2004 except run for President.

Lightweight.

[ripple]

7. And what experience has Edwards gained since 2004?

Other than experience as a campaigner, of course? :shrug:

[mix]

2. good

let her reap what she's sown

[sueh]

3. No wonder Bill sent that email to grassroots to raise 1 mil last week.