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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Jessica Rettig
More pro-business donors in the 'anybody-but-Obama' camp
He's met with the Donald (Trump, that is), and mingled with types like Jamie Dimon, CEO of
Obama's policies as president have been a disappointment for many in the business world, and his anti-rich rhetoric -- in 2009, for example, he called those on Wall Street "fat cat bankers" -- hasn't helped him win their favor either. That's been terrific so far for Romney, whose longtime business experience has reportedly put him on the receiving end of Obama's finance industry losses.
As many as 100 Wall Street donors, including many investors, who previously backed Obama in 2008 have switched to Romney's side,
Romney -- and pretty much everyone else in the 2012 Republican nomination field -- is winning the financial industry by default, says Mike Green, a partner at La Jolla, Calif.-based
Notably, Green says that Obama's policies shouldn't have been a surprise to the business world since they were apparent even before his 2008 presidential run. "Everything in his past said he was going to be bad for business," he says. "All that was always there. Why people didn't see it is beyond me."
During the 2008 campaign, Obama convinced voters, and many of his Wall Street donors, that his leadership would be good for the economy, according to Phil Levy, a scholar at the conservative
Obama's campaign has the help of super-rich mogul Warren Buffett, who's come out publicly in support of the president's policies and is scheduled to attend an Obama fundraiser Friday. In addition, the campaign says that Obama has made up for his lost supporters on Wall Street with roughly 230,000 new donors from all over the country that he didn't have in 2008. Indeed, as the majority of Obama's backers through the second quarter funded him in smaller amounts (
Even so, according to Bill Whalen, a fellow at the conservative-leaning
Where Obama has moved away from Wall Street's interests since the last campaign, Romney, by contrast, has spent much of the last few years demonstrating he's on the same page, Whalen says. Though he wasn't technically on Wall Street, his work as a venture capitalist for
Romney's past support for an individual mandate in Massachusetts' state healthcare plan does raise some flags among the conservative business community and could influence where he stands among the rest of the primary players, says Green. However, since most businesses outside Massachusetts are concerned with the federal healthcare law, Romney's pledge to undo it upon taking office, on top of his pro-business jobs plan, makes him electable, he says.
His laid-back strategy also seems to be helping him with big business and Wall Street, as others in the race, including Obama, have come under the gun for aggressive policy or bold statements, according to
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Why Obama Is Down and Romney Is Up on Wall Street | Politics
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