In late January, Brad Thompson, the Obama campaign’s chief liaison to major donors in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, called some of his contacts in the area, most of them Wall Street executives. The president’s next trip to town would be in early March. Would they be interested in helping to host a small dinner?
For Obama — and therefore Thompson — things had not been going well in New York. The president had already traveled to the city around 20 times during his first term, but he wasn’t collecting money from Wall Street the way he used to. By the end of January 2008, Obama had raised well over $7 million from the securities and investment industry. By the end of January this year, he had only $2.4 million to show. Thompson needed this event to bring in at least $2 million more.
Read more at The New York Times.
