President Obama Raises Nearly $1 Million in DC

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http://whitehouse.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/11/obama-raises-nearly-1-million-in-d-c/

After raising just under $2 million at three fundraisers in Florida on Tuesday, President Obama was at it again with a fundraiser in Washington DC on Wednesday evening. The closed-press event was held at the W Hotel across from the White House. A campaign official confirmed that approximately 20 supporters attended the event, each paying $40,000 for a ticket, meaning the president raised at least $800,000.

The maximum an individual is allowed to contribute to the Obama Victory Fund – a joint fundraising committee of Obama for America and the Democratic National Committee – is $35,800. This is due to donation limits set by the Federal Election Commission allowing a maximum individual donation of $30,800 to a political party committee per year and a $2,500 maximum individual donation to a candidate per election. The president is allowed to collect money for both the general election and his uncontested run for the Democratic nomination.

According to the campaign, any money that the president raises at the W on Wednesday above the legal limits would go to several state Democratic parties.

[msongs]

1. unemployed Americans losing their homes will just be happy as clams to hear this nt

[Domingo Tavella]

2. The price of an election

There is an unfortunate asymmetry between Obama and Romney in fundraising. Romney’s financial supporters are very good at putting a price to what they would lose if Romney loses, and are, therefore, willing to donate substantially. Obama supporters, on the other hand, are not very good at assessing the price of what they would lose if Romney wins, and therefore the contributions are much smaller. This is part of the economic class structure of the US, where the rich make their decisions on objective information (furnished by their accountants and lawyers), and where the rest decide under the influence of the super-rich. A person making ten million a year stands to lose one million a year if Obama wins. There are about ten thousand people who make over ten million per year. Simple arithmetic tells you the amount of cash that will stream out of the super rich to support Romney will run into the tens of billions (assuming the super-rich behave rationally, which they most likely will). Unless Romney chooses Palin or Santorum as a running mate, or for some reason his hair falls out (baldness is no-no in American presidential politics), the odds for Obama will be very tough indeed.