The Wall Street Journal
Obama Faces Resistance From Top Supporters of Clinton
By JOHN R. EMSHWILLER and CHRISTOPHER COOPER
July 7, 2008; Page A1
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Sen. Obama took a gamble on his ability to raise private funds by becoming the first presidential candidate to opt out of public financing, surrendering the chance to use $84 million in taxpayer money. And he is coming off one of the worst fund-raising months of his campaign. In May, the latest month for which federal-election records are available, Sen. Obama, raised $21.8 million, just a little more than the $21.4 million raised by presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, known as a mediocre fund-raiser.
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"I can afford to simply say, 'No, I'm not interested,'" Sen. Obama said recently, asked if his refusal to take public money made him more vulnerable to donors who might have an agenda. But it is precisely this attitude that turns off some former Clinton donors, who were used to being treated to private audiences with the former first lady and her husband and exclusive events during campaign stops. Many of those donors have decades-long relationships with the Clintons and would be unlikely to support any other candidate as enthusiastically. Some former Hillraisers, even ones who are backing Sen. Obama, complain privately that the Illinois senator remains aloof and plays down what they believe was sexist treatment of Sen. Clinton during her campaign as the first major female presidential candidate.
Last Wednesday, Daphna Ziman, a prominent Beverly Hills backer of Sen. Clinton, hosted a conference call of some 70 political activists from around the country, spurred by what she and others on the call saw as the media's sexism during the campaign. One high-profile example: pundits both on TV and in print referred to Sen. Clinton's laugh as a "cackle." Separately, a joke by comedian Chris Rock comparing the candidate to the knife-wielding madwoman played by Glenn Close in the film "Fatal Attraction" was picked up and parroted by others in the mainstream media... Ms. Ziman's group agreed to start a new political action committee focused on women's issues, called Women's Empowerment, or WePAC, and sporting the motto "Enough is enough." They also launched a new fund-raising effort to help Sen. Clinton pay down her campaign debt, estimated at about $20 million... One new Web site challenging Sen. Obama, Together4us.com, declares on its home page: "We are being asked to embrace Party Unity without the fair representation of Hillary Clinton" and the roughly 18 million people who voted for her during the primaries. The site was organized by Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a businesswoman and Hillraiser who says: "There are thousands, probably millions, of women and men who aren't happy with the way the Democratic Party conducted the primaries, or with the result."
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Recently, Sen. Obama has made a flurry of pronouncements signaling broader support for the death penalty and his backing for an expanded terrorism bill he once opposed. He has also made statements on the Iraq war that some interpreted as a softening of his promise for an immediate withdrawal of American troops. The new rhetoric seems calculated to push Sen. Obama to the political center, but he says it doesn't represent any policy changes. Even so, it is threatening his support among liberal Democrats, many of whom make up his small-donor base. The independent activist group Democrats.com has established an escrow fund to encourage Sen. Obama to rethink his position on warrantless-wiretapping legislation, which is supported by the Bush administration but opposed by liberal Democrats.. Through its new Obama Progressive Escrow Fund, the group is asking donors to contribute $1 million in conditional pledges that would be doled out to the candidate as long as his stances jibed with the group's politics.
"Many progressives were shocked" late last month "when Obama flip-flopped on wiretapping immunity," Democrats.com President Bob Fertik said in an email to supporters. "We are absolutely not trying to hurt Obama -- we'll give him our money at some point. We're just asking for a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T like Aretha Franklin sang about." As of Sunday, the group, which claims a donor base of 350,000, said it had raised $74,000 for the fund.
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