Obama’s 351 Campaign Rainmakers
The Obama campaign today voluntarily released the names of its 351 top volunteer fundraisers, or “ bundlers,” who collect checks from their networks of deep-pocket friends and deliver them to the Obama Victory Fund for the coming campaign.
Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, UBS Americas CEO Robert Wolf, and former CNET executive and Obama national finance committee chairman Matthew Barzun are among the newest financiers to enlist in the last quarter, which ended Sept. 30. Each brought in more than $500,000 for the 2012 campaign, records show.
They joined Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour, DreamWorks CEO Jeffry Katzenberg, former NJ Gov. and Goldman Sachs CEO Jon Corzine, and 241 other high-profile financiers who enlisted in April.
Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments and a “Good Morning America” finance contributor, also became a bundler, wrapping up between $200,000-$500,000 for Obama and Democrats.
Obama bundlers have raised $55.5 million combined for the Victory Fund, which funnels cash to both the Obama campaign and Democratic National Committee. Looked at another way, their contributions are 35 percent of the total $156 million raised by Obama and the DNC so far this year.
Forty-one bundlers have raised more than $500,000 each; 95 collected between $200,000 and $500,000; 105 gathered between $100,000 and $200,000; and 110 netted between $50,000 and $100,000. The campaign had set a goal of signing up 400 bundlers for the cycle, asking each to rake in $350,000.
None of the Republican presidential candidates has disclosed a full list of the names and contributions of top fundraisers, breaking from a precedent set by George W. Bush and continued by Sen. John McCain during the 2008 campaign.