The Obama 2012 presidential campaign refuses to release its fundraising totals for individual events involving the president, keeping a dark curtain over one the least savory aspects of campaigning for the nation’s highest office.
The hiding of Obama’s fundraising event totals is inconsistent with the pledge of openness that has been a watchword of Obama’s campaigns and presidency. And the omission is particularly glaring given its contrast with past practices.
According to veteran CBS White House Correspondent Mark Knoller, who meticulously tracks various presidential metrics and frequently reports about them at Political Hotsheet, while Obama never releases his fundraising totals, George W. Bush did.
“The Bush Campaign routinely told reporters how much money it expected to raise at any given event,” Knoller said. “Not so the Obama campaign.”
The Obama campaign does release cumulative totals at the end of each quarter. And, as Knoller notes, it is sometimes possible to deduce the total take at an event from ticket prices – which are often revealed – and the number of people expected at an event.
But even then, it can be hard to know the total raised, because tickets are often described in a range of prices, and it is not always clear that everyone in attendance paid the exact amount of the “ticket” – or even if they were allowed to sit in gratis. And reporters often fail to do the addition, resulting in far less publicity for the fundraising total.
With Obama’s emphasis on battling for “the 99 percent,” the Obama campaign has tremendous incentive to downplay the millions the president can collect in a single evening from well heeled patrons in wealthy liberal bastions like Hollywood and New York City.
Obama frequently holds intimate events with small groups of extravagantly rich donors who fork over the maximum $35,800 for the Democratic National Committee and the Obama campaign. At least one event this year has maxed out at $45,000, with donors throwing in a donation to Democratic state efforts as well.
Obama has what is likely to be a big-ticket fundraiser this evening, traveling to a private residence in Washington to pass the hat around.
Even the announcement of a fundraising event is obscured by the White House. The official schedule never bills a fundraiser as as fundraiser. Instead, it says – as it does for tonight’s gathering – that Obama is slated to be at “a campaign event,” which to the untrained eye could mean a speech or a rally. But each of these are actually fundraisers.
What’s more, if Obama does not deliver formal remarks at the event, there is no transcript of anything he says, and the event is closed to the press.
The Obama campaign did not respond to a request for comment on why it refuses to release the fundraising totals.
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I’d like to think they don’t say bec the totals are lower than they’d like–but probably this is wishful thinking. But I always wonder–if they are so great, compassionate, wise and all-knowing and have done such a neat job, why would they need a billion to stuff all this into America’s face?
We’ll never know. Media won’t ask.
Transparent? Oh yes….and I am the tooth fairy.
Yep ! and we’re selling prime swamp land in fla called
“Transparent Acres”!
(we’ll throw the gators in for free)
The Charlatan-in-chief
Aren’t $200+ donor names supposed to be public? Also, I’d like to know how many of those $3 Dinner with Barack lotteries are counted as “small donors” ?
What’s transparent to me, that 45k donor will problem reap millions in return for his company or pet project.
A person with a conscience would be ashamed of his hypocricy and lies but
he thinks he’s answerable to no one.
Conscience? The man has none.
he is the ultimate in arrogance.. look at the old films of mussolini & see the startling similarities of posture & ego.. especially the tilt of the head
and the looking down of the raised nose.. he’s as creepy as it gets!
the scales over his eyes allow him to see nothing but himself…
(and his campaign of course)
He is an arrogant piece of work. On the scale of narcissim and ego
he and the little woman are off the scale.
Who knows what sources his money is coming from? By keeping event totals secret his group can funnel money from less savory origins into the records as if they came from fund-raising events.
Keith — what do you think about Michelle Obama running sack races and doing tug-o-wars in the Blue Room amid irreplaceable national treasures? I hate to see that sow hopping along in a sack past the full-length portrait of George Washington — no respect for his memory and no care for the painting that represents so much. There’s a gym in the WH where our lady of self-publicity could have done her romping, right?
Right. Not the picture of elegance, was it?
There must be trouble in Obamaland. The big 2007/8 donors are sitting on their wallets because MrO can’t/won’t deliver as promised.
The upset elections of 2010 effectively stopped the gravy train for those wishing to be enriched, one way or another, by exposing the deep flaw in the progressive movement.
There’s the most transparent administration evah hiding behind carefully chosen words and phrases. They probably believe if he hides the amount he gets at his campaign soirees he can also hide who the donors are. That’s how Mexican mafia bosses like Juan Jose Rojas Cardona, aka Pepe, buys favors in the way of a pardon from the crooks in the WH. Pepe jumped bail for drug and fraud charges in Iowa and ran to Mexico, but he wants to come back to America to ply his trade. Too bad for them, they got caught before Obama could seal the deal. Wonder if Obama’s campaign staff really will return the more than $200K they raised from Pepe’s American family members?
I would like to know where the outrage is over the spectacle of the mentally challenged, attention-crazed wife of the Fundraiser-in-Chief racing through the Blue Room in a designer gunney sack! Even her daughters must have been mortified!
What’s next – a hot dog eating contest on the floor of the Oval Office?
They are doing things like that on purpose Girly. The Obamas’ are getting a big kick out of tormenting us. Try not to let it get to you. We will get our revenge when the moving van backs up to the WH to take the Chicago hillbillies back home for good.
Susan — I am a hillbilly and we are decent folk — not the cartoon images presented to other by the media. And even then, for all the ridiculousness in “The Beverly HIllbillies” tv show, the Clampetts were the only decent people in their world — it was the rich non-hillbillies who caused the problems..
May I suggest a more accurate phrase for the Obamas? How about “ghetto-pretense, but really not, affirmative action, Chicago urban grifters?
Point taken. Being a hillbilly myself, I meant nothing derogatory towards our nature. Guess I was talking more about the Obamas’ lack of sophistication when it comes to respect for American history and culture.
I’m shocked, too, though I had the feeling from the start that The One was only tolerating the job of President bec he needed it to make his marvellous moves and fundamentally change the nation.
A race hater like Michelle isn’t going to have respect for George Washington, etc.. Persons of her ilk believe that American history began with the Civil Rights Movement. So I guess her constituency enjoys seeing a room filled with portraits of dead white people being treated disrespectfully.
Her idea of the devil: Old Rich White Men. In this case…
George Washington, etal.
I must say that for being a Hillbilly, you are really well educated on current events. As I recall Ma and Pa Kettle were way smarter than the average revenuer.
The push-ups, throwing a football, hula-hooping and now the tug-o-war combined with a cringe-worthy sack race in the historic rooms at the White House surely make for a strange image for a FirstLady.
As for “on purpose”, almost everything coming out of the WhiteHouse seems to be one purpose to torment all of us. What the end game might be for all this is a mystery.
I felt MoochMORE wanted to act out her non-whiteness as First Lady a la “she’s not stuffy like them ladies.” I’m not sure what that would mean in my world if I were to undertake such an effort — but in hers it seems to be too-tight clothing, glam and bling 24/7, and “keeping it real” stuff like grinding her girl groove for all to see and hopping around the White House in a sack race with a comedian. Which is much more like a clown than any other persona I can call to mind.
MoochMORE — she may be first, but she’ll never be a lady.
Yes where is the outrage?
http://www.radioiowa.com/2012/02/09/event-with-michelle-obama-to-include-10000-iowa-school-children/
Yes, and what is the White House saying about this event? Who is paying for these kids to be bussed to become JungenObaman for The Wife? Why is is okay for the WH to arrange something that pulls them out of school?
Wow she’s a busy little world record setting jumping jacker. Three states in one day!
http://obamafoodorama.blogspot.com/2012/02/first-lady-michelle-obamas-schedule.html#more
I’m guessing MO can only top the WH circus of horrors with pew hurdles at the National Cathedral.
LOL!
Keith!!! Please pick up the BatPhone a do a blog post on the Mini-Olympics Amongst Irreplaceable National Treasure! Drudge can link to it and the Obaminable treatment of OUR House can be vetted!!!
My boys DO NOT run, punt, pass, kick, sack race or tug of war in Casa Contrary (where the ONLY breakables are lamps from Target). The Jimmy Fallon Tug of War INFRONT OF AN IRREPLACEABLE portrait of George Washington? What the he## were either of the two of them; or the production staff of thirty, THINKING?!? Does no one say no to Madame O?
Jimmy Failing needs to go away.
Mass indoctrination! There must be a law against this form of electioneering/ tyranny! If not, we need one pronto!
The two grifters will do anything to get another 4 years. If they lose in November, I hope the Arson Squad will be on 24 hour alert! Nothing would surprise me! They have shown their true colors!
The more $ they disclose, the less $ they can launder.
Duh!
Skanks.
Maybe it’s me–probably is–but the grifters meme is wearing thin….they are cheesy but actual con men…the long con? Oh, who knows… If it’s the long con, then the grifter is Soros or whoever is behind this…
And we may not know who really is behind it for many years…just like the school records, passports and social security number.
You may be right and perhaps I am using grifters in an incorrect sense. Obama’s illegal alien aunt was able to make two donations to his first Presidential campaign — and that seems pretty much wrong to me. MoochMORE using her platform as First Lady to groove with celebs, travel around and put herself in the spotlight, taking her own jet to vaycays, linking her empty “like me” campaigns such as NoKidsFatBehinds and GuessWhatMilitaryPeopleHaveFamilies to less publicized activities — perhaps none are illegal and that means The One and The Wife are not actually grifters. What would the right term be? Hustlers?
Opportunists, cheeseballs…there are plenty of reasons to be disgusted and embarrassed by them as leaders…I am just sick of the grifter thing. thug also does not fit (to me, anyhow). I seem to be on a kick to make people better commenters–sorry, I’ll stop being preachy. When the same words or boring curses come up again and again, I get antsy-pantsy.
Sorry Star, I won’t bite my tongue about these grifters whether it hurts your sensitivities or not. You can’t “make people better communicators”. First of all we are all individuals who have led different lives. I may not have as much education as others on this board but I will decide what kind of communicator I am and there ain’t anyone who is going to make me into their mold of what a “better communicator” is.
Americans are afraid. We see our country devolving into anarchy and despotism. Better we strike out against the tyrants with harsh words and nicknames, rather than surrender to them. Owebama and Moochelle can kiss my grits.
Here I am ranting about communicators and you said commenters. The sentiment still stands.
I was observing that the term grifters is overdone and not accurate. No one is asking you to bite your tongue or any other part over how annoying amd destructive these people are–I talk about that daily. While we are on the subj, hlllbillies also does not fit them.
Maybe not, but thugs and grifters sure does.
Amenth Susan !
We hold our minds &words back to no rodent in this WH .. in fact, they can all kiss my grits AND my hamhocks !!
2013 the end of an error
Barack Hussein Obama – Con Artist Extraordinaire….my fav.
The Kenya-ticut Candidate.
Just too much secrecy surrounding Obama, his folks and his government that it’s simply disgusting.
Yes, I often think someone knows how this ends–that it’s orchestrated, that silly people like me trying to find things out and comment and work against the machine are deluding themselves. When the opposition starts poisoning itself, it makes me think this is a whole putup job…send over my tinfoil hat, I guess.
Star, silly you are not as I am sure many like me have found great insights in your comments. Perhaps you are right as there everything seems to be part of a big conspiracy, but at least you are voicing that not everyone is part of it, that not everyone is being fooled and that not all of us are idiots. Please keep going and don’t stop now as people like you at the end make the big difference.
Thanks, Jack….I was feeling sort of mopey…you helped…We can’t give up the fight, peck peck peck against the mess.
Star, please help me out here: Is it just me or is there any other that finds offensive the horsing around inside the WH by Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign? To me (and the rest of the world) she and her husband are really succeeding as the American’s clowns in chief and at the same time they are demining and degrading all that use to be representative, historic and precious to the US as a nation. I cannot conceive something similar happening in The Buckingham palace, The Élysée or the Hermitage museum. Literally speaking she’s like a bull in a china shop.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2012/feb/08/michelle-obama-fitness
if should read “diminishing” instead of demining. :(
And let us not forget how Da Won drop kicked Churchill’s bust back to England immediately upon usurping office.
Need to make room for the Alinsky, Mao & Che artifacts, donchaknow!
I went to MSNBC and searched for Fallon “michelle obama” and (I think) exercise and found two short articles, exactly the same — and both in the format that does not alloiw comments!!!!
Yes–I think it’s outrageous–my “Obameter” went ding–every Mom I know of says don’t throw balls in the house. It’s all fun and games until someone puts out an eye…Remember that?