The nature of the love affair with Barack Obama

[Realitycheck]

Going in to this election, I held the belief that Hillary would have a vast advantage of personal experience to draw from in order to get things done right within the realm of things that can actually get accomplished. Experience counts for a lot. Of course, it wasn't long enough before I found out about Obama's rhetorical abilities and thought to myself, "Well, this means either way, things should turn out fairly well either way, from a Democratic standpoint. Granted, he's a good talker, but he is knowledgeable with the basic aspects of the general job description, so he is not another Reagan. Call him another Slick Willy if you want, but that's just the way it is when you are a rookie. You just cannot know everything there is to know to talk like experienced Slick Willy.

 

I wondered what types of major contributors have helped fuel the Obama love affair and this is what I have found. These contributions do not seem that big when compared to the total war chest, so this is really about drive, not big numbers. But the actual contributors I found surprised me. I was expecting the major contributors to be companies like BET and Vibe and you know anything other than Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and JP Morgan Chase. So what is it that these companies see in Barack Obama that the vast experience advantage doesn't account for? Sure, he will/would be armed with advisors up the the keel, but that doesn't completely measure up to "Well, we know what works and we know what doesn't and the time is now to make it work." In Dallas, we had a black Democratic mayor for a while who was more of an under-the-table puppet to the big money of the town than anything, according to some. I'm just wondering, what's going to happen? Does he get things done, or does he just get played?

 

Top Contributors

 

Goldman Sachs $474,428

Ubs Ag $298,180

JP Morgan Chase & Co $282,387

Lehman Brothers $274,147

National Amusements Inc $265,750

Sidley Austin LLP $251,657

Citigroup Inc $247,436

University of California $239,944

Skadden, Arps et al $228,520

Exelon Corp $226,661

Harvard University $225,891

Jones Day $213,825

Google Inc $192,808

Time Warner $190,091

Morgan Stanley $190,026

Citadel Investment Group $173,950

Kirkland & Ellis $163,126

Latham & Watkins $160,842

WilmerHale LLP $155,788

Jenner & Block $151,447

 

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.asp?id=N00009638&cycle=2008

[swansont]

It could be hedging by companies who think that he will win. Are these same corporations donating to McCain?

[Pangloss]

Probably. It's a common theme these days, donating to multiple candidates. I've never really understood holding candidates accountable for donations (per se), but I do agree with the need to hold them accountable for their relationships with donors, and often the donations can give testimony to that relationship. But that doesn't seem to be the case here.

[Realitycheck]

I see some hedging going on here. But really this has more to say about the choices of the members of PACS and so forth, not necessarily the Board of Directors or whatever. The size of each contribution is limited by a complex sliding scale and contributions are completely prohibited by the actual corporations, unions, and banks, etc.

 

John McCain

Top Contributors

 

Blank Rome LLP $188,200

Merrill Lynch $177,475

Citigroup Inc $161,000

Greenberg Traurig LLP $150,987

Goldman Sachs $104,950

IDT Corp $84,850

Univision Communications $82,000

Credit Suisse Group $81,700

Bank of New York Mellon $79,300

Bridgewater Assoc $74,400

JP Morgan Chase & Co $74,200

MGM Mirage $70,400

Lehman Brothers $70,150

Blackstone Group $66,250

Irvine Co Apartment Community $66,100

Wachovia Corp $64,650

Morgan Stanley $63,851

Pinnacle West Capital $61,700

Cisco Systems $60,650

UBS AG $56,465

[Saryctos]

National Amusements Inc $265,750

Time Warner $190,091

 

These two strike me as an odd catch in that list...

[Mr Skeptic]

Interesting to see Google on the list...