Well technically, it is bundling for Obama but bumbling just seems a better description. This is the first in an irregular series on who is raising cash for Barack Obama. The Obama campaign likes to make a lot of claims on the money it has raised. He touts that he doesn’t take money from oil companies (no one does or has since the 1907 Tillman Act that prohibits corporations from making direct campaign contributions) and that the bulk of his campaign contributions are raised on-line in small contributions. In fact a little more than half has been raised on-line. Sixty percent of the Obama campaign’s funds have come from people who have given at least $1,000, the kind of donors who are most often recruited by bundlers, wealthy individuals who tap their network of friends and business associate to raise funds. Less than 30% of his contributions come from people who gave less than $200.
Obama, like any other serious candidate, uses a cast of well-connected fundraisers to bundle donations from wealthy folks. In return, they get extraordinary access to the candidate and the campaign. Bundlers have direct access to top campaign officials and get regular updates from the campaign. Weekly conference calls and daily emails are the norm.
I have never been a bundler but I have been bundled. Here’s how it works. You get an email or a call from your boss (in my case) inviting you to an event for a candidate. The candidate comes and gives a short speech about their campaign and their proposals. Then your boss gets up and tells you how the candidate will be good for the country and the firm. Well in that case, how can one not contribute?
The maximum any individual can contribuite to a campaign is $2,300. So generally these are fundraising dinners up to that magic $2,300 number. Bundlers can raise large amounts of cash quickly. For example, Obama raised $970,000 in that one day in the San Francisco Bay Area back in April at three events when he made those unfortunate “bitter” remarks. Not bad for an afternoon’s work. Now let’s meet the first of Obama’s bumbling bundlers.
Reed Hundt
Reed Hundt of Washington DC has raised over $50,000 according to information provided by the Obama campaign.
Mr. Hundt is a principal of Charles Ross Partners, a private investor and business advisory service. He serves as an independent adviser to The Blackstone Group, a private equity firm. He serves as a member of the Management Advisory Board at the Yale School of Management. Mr. Hundt served four years as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), from 1993 to 1997. Reed Hundt is a senior advisor on information technology industries to McKinsey & Company, a worldwide management consulting firm and one of the most influential firms worldwide. He serves on the board of Intel Corporation and other high-technology start-ups. He is the author of You Say You Want a Revolution (Yale University Press, 2000) and In China’s Shadow, The Crisis of American Entrepreneurship (Yale University Press, 2006). Mr. Hundt has also contributed to Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo.
Of all the ties Mr. Hundt has, two are rather interesting. The first of these is the Blackstone Group, a private equity group, that is it makes investments in companies both private and public. From 1987 through December 31, 2007, their corporate private equity funds have invested in approximately 123 companies in a variety of industries and geographies in pursuit of their investment objectives. The total enterprise value of all transactions effected by Blackstone’s corporate private equity operations through December 31, 2007 was approximatelyr $250 billion. As of December 31, 2007, Blackstone’s corporate private equity operation had approximately $31.8 billion of assets under management. As of December 31, 2007, their corporate private equity funds had significant equity investments in 44 different companies. Here is some of their portfolio. The Blackstone Group is also hedge fund, that is they trade stocks taking both long and short positions.
As for Charles Ross Partners, they are rather tight-lipped on disclosing their business lines. Here is their profile on Hoover’s Business Services. They are a K Street “legal services” office. That’s DC speak for lobbyists but it’s likely that Mr. Hundt hasn’t pinched his registered lobbyist colleagues for cash since the Obama camp doesn’t take cash from registered lobbyists but it does take cash from former lobbyists like Mr. Hundt. Charles Ross does lobbying on behalf of telecommunications industry assisting them navigate the maze of regulations at the FCC. Let’s see a former chairman of the FCC lobbying on behalf of telecom companies at the FCC, shocking! Who is Obama kidding?
Half the nation apparently.
Here is the Muckety web of relationships for Mr. Reed Hundt. It is also rather interesting that the Obama campaign only touts Mr. Hundt’s ties to Intel and the Blackstone Group omitting entirely his roles at Charles Ross and McKinsey & Company.
Ari Emanuel
The brother of former Clinton White House aide and current Congressman from Illinois Rahm Emanuel, Ariel “Ari” Emanuel is a prominent talent agent and founder of the Endeavor Agency in Beverly Hills, California. He represents Larry David, Michael Moore, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Mark Wahlberg, among others. His stature in the industry has prompted various homages and parodies over the years, including *Bob Odenkirk’s character Stevie Grant on The Larry Sanders Show and the character Ari Gold, played by Jeremy Piven, on the HBO television show Entourage.
Ari Emmanuel has raised over $100,000 for Obama according to campaign disclosures. He has held at least four events for Obama dating back to April 2007. Back on April 28, 2007, Obama attended a fund-raiser at the home of Ari Emanuel, followed by an event at the Hollywood nightclub Boulevard 3 hosted by a group that included Lawrence Bender and Nicole Avant and celebrities like Jessica Biel, Scarlett Johansson and Rosario Dawson.
Back on February 12, 2008 blogging on the Huffington Post, Mr. Emanuel wrote this:
My brother Rahm Emanuel is a superdelegate. I love my brother, and I trust my brother. But I gave up letting my brother dictate my life since he determined whether he got the top or bottom bunk in our bedroom back in Chicago.
So, as much as I love and respect him, I don’t trust him and his fellow superdelegates to decide for me and the American people who should be the Democratic nominee — and, therefore, most likely the next president of the United States.
I want voters to make that decision. The superdelegates, my brother included, have not been elected by anybody to name the nominee. They’ve either been appointed by the Party or, as in my brother’s case, have automatically inherited the role simply because they are elected officials. This isn’t the place to debate the entire history of superdelegates. Suffice it to say, however, they were created by the Party machine decades ago for the express purpose of giving Party insiders the ability to thwart the popular will.
Somehow I get the suspicion his views have changed.
Here is the Muckety web of relationships for Mr. Ariel Emanuel.