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Wall Street lurvs Mitt. Eh, Barack?

Speaking of Mitt Romney, the NYT reports that Mitt Romney is raising a ton more cash from Wall Street than Barack Obama is. Excerpt: That gap underscores the growing alienation from Mr. Obama among many rank-and-file financial professionals and Mr. Romney’s aggressive and successful efforts to woo them. The imbalance exists at large investment banks […]

Speaking of Mitt Romney, the NYT reports that Mitt Romney is raising a ton more cash from Wall Street than Barack Obama is. Excerpt:

That gap underscores the growing alienation from Mr. Obama among many rank-and-file financial professionals and Mr. Romney’s aggressive and successful efforts to woo them.

The imbalance exists at large investment banks and hedge funds, private equity firms and commercial banks, according to a New York Times analysis of the firms that accounted for the most campaign contributions from the industry to Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama in 2008, based on data from the Federal Election Commission and the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

It could widen as Mr. Obama, seeking to harness anger over growing income inequality, escalates his criticism of the industry, after a year spent trying to smooth ties bruised by efforts to impose tougher regulations.

Mort Zuckerman, the Democratic billionaire and media player, denounced Obama’s tone-deafness to business in a Wall Street Journal interview this weekend, faulting the president for anti-rich people rhetoric and a lack of leadership:

When I visit Mr. Zuckerman this week in his midtown Manhattan office, he reports that three people approached him at dinner the previous evening to discuss his August op-ed. Among business executives who supported Barack Obama in 2008, he says, “there is enormously widespread anxiety over the political leadership of the country.” Mr. Zuckerman reports that among Democrats, “The sense is that the policies of this government have failed. . . . What they say about [Mr. Obama] when he’s not in the room, so to speak, is astonishing.”

Not to deny Obama’s leadership deficit, but it’s not surprising that Wall Street money men would prefer to give money to a presidential candidate who founded Bain Capital. Seems to me that instead of chasing money and love he’ll never get now, Obama should think about whether he should become a full-throated populist. I don’t think he can pull it off, frankly, but it would probably make more political sense than what he’s doing now.

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