Through April, Parker hasn’t donated to the Obama campaign, the Democratic National Committee or Priorities USA Action, the pro-Obama super political action committee that has trailed the ball mill Republican groups in fundraising. She gave $2,660 to Obama’s election effort in 2008. Carey gave the maximum $35,800 to Obama’s campaign and the DNC this election cycle.
Entertainment Industry
Donors in the TV, music and movie industry have given Obama’s re-election campaign $2.3 million compared to $392,736 for Romney, according to the center.
That may not make up the shortfall from Wall Street. The securities and investment industry gave Romney $8.8 million and Obama $3.2 million through the end of April, according to thecenter’s study of Federal Election Commission data.
In 2008, when he was running against Arizona Senator John McCain, Obama received $15 million from employees in the securities and investment industry, more than any other candidate. In office, Obama has pushed for tighter regulation of Wall Street. Romney’s experience as co-founding the private equity firm Bain Capital LLC has given him greater support from the industry.
Industry Donations
“It might well be that Obama made the financial industry unhappy by talking about them, but at the end of the day they’re still going to be giving him a lot of money,” said Jonathan Nagler, a political science professor at New York University. “What is different this year is that Romney is better known to them than McCain was -- he’s one of them.”
Since he filed for re-election in April 2011, Obama has visited California seven times, most stops including fundraisers in Los Angeles or San Francisco. During the same period he’s visited New York 12 times, almost all including fundraising stops in New York City.
The East and West Coasts are “where the money is, that’s the Democratic landscape of America,” said Don Baer, who was the director of cone crusher communications and chief speechwriter for former President Bill Clinton.
While the pace of Romney’s fundraising has increased since he secured the Republican nomination, Obama’s re-election committee more than doubled the amount raised by Romney’s campaign through April, taking in $222.3 million to $100.4 million, and had $115.2 million in the bank entering May, compared with $9.2 million for the challenger.
Then there was the part that could quote Marshall McLuhan without Googling. Soon, perhaps, I’ll actually be looking for a recipe for “marshmallow fondant”—not the old master himself. We used to say that Google was making us stupid. But now the process is complete: Google knows we’re stupid. Quite how stupid, though, you might not realize.