According to a report by OpenSecrets.org, which is titled, "Financial Sector Helps Barack Obama Score Big Money for Re-election Fight:"
One-third of the money Obama's elite fund-raising corps has raised on behalf of his re-election has come from the financial sector, according to a new Center for Responsive Politics analysis.The Finance, insurance, and real estate sectors have raised at least $11.8 million dollars for Obama's re-election campaign.
Wall Street has certainly had an impact upon Obama's election in 2008, and will certainly have an impact upon his campaign in 2012. Obama promised in 2008 that he would not accept campaign donations from registered lobbysts. He hasn't. But he has hired and accepted campaign donations from former registered lobbyists who serve as fund-raisers for the President.
Obama's buddy-buddy act with Wall Street has led opensecrets.org to claim:
President Barack Obama has relied more on well-connected Wall Street figures to fund his re-election than he did four years ago when he campaigned as an outsider and an underdog.
Wall Street money will also play a significant role in the Republican presidential primary as well. Mitt Romney, one of the leading candidates for the Republican nomination, had six registered lobbyists bundle money for him during the second quarter of the year. These individuals raised $517,450 for Romney's campaign, as OpenSecrets Blog previously reported.During the 2008 election cycle alone, Republican and Democratic politicians raised a combined $500 million from the finance, insurance and real estate sector, the Center for Responsible Politics reports.
But let's not be too quick to blame this on Citizens United v. FEC. Let's blame it on the fact that government and big business are in bed together, have been for longer than Obama has been in office, and both benefit very nicely from this arrangement.
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