In Clinton’s Backyard, It’s Open Season as an Obama Fund-Raiser Lines Up Donors

[Ethelk2044]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=132



The race was on for New York’s prized political donors, and
Mr. Johnson, one of Senator Barack Obama’s leading
fund-raisers in the city, was trying to poach in the heart of
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s financial territory. 

Before the day was up, Mr. Johnson got about a dozen people on
the phone with the pitch that Mr. Obama represented “a
generational shift” away from the partisan chokehold gripping
Washington. A few told him they were not ready to give, but
more than half said they were willing to sign checks and come
to a March 9 fund-raiser at the Grand Hyatt New York.

He called Joyce Johnson, a family friend (she was once his
baby sitter) who lives on the Upper West Side and who has run
unsuccessfully for State Assembly and the City Council over
the past few years. She said she was on board with Mr. Obama’s
campaign, with some trepidation.

“A lot of the women who supported me are supporting Hillary,”
Ms. Johnson said. She named a West Side activist who has, in
the past, raised money for Gov. Eliot Spitzer and
Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York.

“Ricki Lieberman is like my godmother,” Ms. Johnson said, “And
she’s going with Hillary and I’m going the other way. Keep
talking to me, Jeh. Give me some sea legs. Tell me what to
say.”

Mr. Johnson, whose name is pronounced jay, leaned back in his
chair and said: “Joyce, we had 30 or 40 people here in my
office last night for a preliminary meeting on this, and
another 30 on the phone. One thing you learn quickly is that
when the name Barack Obama is involved, you always have more
people show up than you expected.”

Mr. Johnson, a lawyer at Paul, Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton &
Garrison, is a linchpin in uphill efforts to build a donor
base for Mr. Obama in New York, where many potential
supporters have at some time in the last 16 years aided the
Clintons.

Mr. Obama’s ability to raise significant amounts of money
depends on the success that people like Mr. Johnson have among
New York’s all-important Democratic fund-raising circles,
which the Clinton camp has moved aggressively to corral by
battling any perception that elements of the party are
drifting away. And part of Mr. Johnson’s pitch must be that by
contributing to the Obama campaign, Democrats are not showing
disloyalty to the Clintons, a fear that can be heard in his
conversations with donors.

“Look, if it doesn’t work out, then hopefully the nominee will
get over it,” he told one donor in discussing the possibility
of a Clinton victory and its ramifications for the Obama camp.
“She’ll need all the help she can get, particularly from the
people associated with his campaign.”

The Clintons have dominated the fund-raising race for
Democratic-party money in New York since long before Mrs.
Clinton held office in the state, Mr. Johnson said. “She and
her husband have been working New York for 16 years and they
know where they are,” he added. “But I think we’re going to
surprise a lot of people with who signs up.”

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 Obama campaign hopes to draw 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.

But another strategy holds that in order to keep up with Mrs.
Clinton, Mr. Johnson and his cohorts will have to succeed at
poaching traditional Clinton donors.

[Bitwit1234]

1. Such a shame people are rushing Obama

This man in five or six years would make a very good president. He would have the maturity and experience to really serve the people of this country. Right now he is not going to win the nomination much less the presidency. He is ruining himself. Hillary Clinton has no chance either. The republicans have really done a number on her. She can never overcome it, and that too is a shame she would make a good president. We will end up as we do most of the time with a unwinable candidate and the republicans will keep the presidency and continue to ruin the country. THE DAMN DEMOCRATS WILL NEVER LEARN.

[Colobo]

2. Who are you supporting, anyway?

[Ethelk2044]

3. Too Bad you feel that Way

There are several republicans stating they are willing to vote
for him.  I believe he is what this country needs right now. 
No one is rushing him.  We need a change in politics.  A big
change in this country and he will provide us this change.