Democratic political committees have seen a decline in their fundraising fortunes this year, a result of complacency among their rank-and-file donors and a de facto boycott by many of their wealthiest givers, who have been put off by the party’s harsh rhetoric about big business.
The trend is a marked reversal from recent history, in which Democrats have erased the GOP’s long-standing fundraising advantage. In the first six months of 2009, Democratic campaign committees’ receipts have dropped compared with the same period two years earlier.
The vast majority of those declines were accounted for by the absence of large donors who, strategists say, have shut their checkbooks in part because Democrats have heightened their attacks on the conduct of major financial firms and set their sights on rewriting the laws that regulate their behavior.
It’s clear that the big money that dominates the party, no more and no less than it does the GOP, wants more proof from Obama (as if any were needed at this point) that he won’t rock the boat.
Remember when Bill Clinton realized that all that money from business groups came with strings attached?? “You mean to tell me that the success of the economic program and my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of fucking bond traders?” he raged during the first year of his administration. Obama no doubt knows the answer to Clinton’s question already; if not he’s about to discover it.
