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Train Wreck? Duuuuhhhhh. (Photo: dok1, flickr)
Has Barack Obama lost Susie Tompkins Buell — founder of the Esprit clothing line and a major big-deal national Democratic fundraiser, bundler, and tastemaker? Then he’s lost a critically important component of his re-election treasury.
“I don’t even know what he stands for,” said Susie Tompkins Buell, a co-founder of the Esprit clothing company and one of the most generous Democratic Party donors in the nation – instrumental in backing such powerhouse progressive organizations as the Democracy Alliance and Media Matters.
This is going to give lots of wealthy liberal Democrats all over the country real pause: if Susie’s willing to say this in public, to the SFChronicle, while protesting in the street outside President Obama’s W Hotel big-roller fundraiser, won’t it be okay for me to delay my donations to the re-election campaign? If Susie’s signalling her unhappiness in public, doesn’t that give me permission to wait-and-see about my 2012 donations?
Susie Buell Tompkins is a San Francisco powerhouse: she drives non-profit fundraising, Democratic fundraising, women’s issues fundraising. She’s a Democratic pillar of the money machine. And she knows everyone with money in the Democratic party. She was #4 among John Kerry’s 2004 fundraisers. Making this public statement is a very bad sign for Obama’s re-election fundraising prospects:
“I think this is a huge issue about our future, about the planet, not just America,” she said. “And he needs to be a leader … to have the awareness of it. To fight for it.”
What issue has Susie so concerned she’s not only skipping a fundraising dinner she could easily afford, but also protesting outside the event and talking to the local paper about it, for attribution?
The Keystone XL pipeline, a proposed 1,700-mile underground conduit linking the tar-sand fields in Alberta, Canada, to Texas refineries.
It’s not only Nebraska ranchers and hippie bloggers and the Obama campaign’s 2008 fundraising email author and 80-year-old Barbara who are disappointed and worried about Barack Obama’s performance on environmental issues: it’s also Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bestest West Coast friend, the one who led the Hillary Holdouts in from the wilderness with her HuffPost article after the historic Denver convention.
If Susie Tompkins Buell is in the streets protesting Barack Obama, he needs to seriously re-think his strategy. Something is seriously amiss.
76 Comments
This is an incredibly disastrous high-level signal to other bundlers and funders: things are way off-track for Obama if Susie is speaking and acting like this in public.
Wow. And I like the fact she and other big donors like her are planning to join the Great White House Encirclement on November 6.
Recommended.
Yep. Methinks she is just the first. (Somebody’s gotta lead the parade.)
Teddy:
Does the President, and by extension Sec. Clinton, know they are basically funding the Koch Brothers with this pipeline? Because the Koch-suckers stand to gain a lot if the pipeline is approved.
I am sure Obomber and Killary are not that stupid. Worst case if Obama looses elections, so what? His family is set for life. He can cash out, add to his net worth of already 5 million$, spew nonsense thru writing books, go on motivation speech circuit blathering on “how to get what you want?” and all that crap , attend socialite gatherings with his fashionable wife and darling daughters. I don’t think he will miss a 2nd term.
tweeted and recommended teddy — wowza!
Thanks!
It’s great to think who might be at that 11/6 White House encirclement. I wonder how much the Secret Service will let demonstrators accomplish?
Susie’s not unafraid to step out at the head of the parade.
I wonder who will be next?
Thanks, Suz!
He has already cashed out….just look at the kind of policies
he has enacted under the guise that the GOP is making me do bad things.
This creep was corrupt from the get-go…..remember Rezko folks.
Excellent piece! Nice catch.
So, Teddy, I shamelessly copied your third-to-last paragraph & the indented blue XL pipeline bit into an email to President Obama. Told him that he’d lost both me and Susie Tompkins Buell.
I often wonder whether emailing the White House does any good. I generally ask for a reply from His Transparentness. Can’t remember ever having received one. Can’t recall that H.T. has ever done anything that I wanted, either.
It’s thus a real boost to read that Susie Tompkins Buell is frustrated, too.
perhaps this is esprit close-out? that’s the only relevance I can see to this comment…really trying here!
Yes, great catch Teddy. When I read this in the paper, my jaw dropped. Wow, getting called out publicly by high roller donors. I saw that others were withholding donations until after they see what O decides on the pipeline…again, it’s money that matters!
The optics on this visit were bad all the way around: Obama closes the event off to local press, he’s protested by previous supporters, and then Occupy Oakland blows up. Can he see outside his protected bubble?
The Super Committee will put significant cracks in the foundation of SS and Medicare. Obama’s work as a neoliberal ideologue will be complete. What will be the point of a second term?
Seriously, no sane and reasonable person can look at how Obama has run his Administration and think that re-election had any primacy as a priority. What is it that keeps this fiction alive? Socialization and conditioning about the purported ambitions of politicians?
“Something is seriously amiss.”
Yep.
Obama is nuttin but a shill for the 1%, that’s been amiss since he announced his cabinet picks and staff.
Nice to see some rich influential folks get it too.
Wonder which oligarch Suzie n her money is gonna go to next.
Could this be an early salvo for PUMA n HRC across the land?
Thank you, Nathan, this is what I’ve been saying for a long time. Way before he told the black caucus to stop “crying” and his recent attacks against medical marijuana that have thereby alienated many young voters whose aggressive support he desperately needs to win. Those are two constituencies that he still has a lot of support to erode from … and he’s going after it. And today he’s back to throwing ss and medicare back on the table for budget cuts … which is exactly what led to the latest negative inflection point to his approval ratings.
He is not going to run, but he’s looking for an “honorable” way out instead of transparently leaving after one term to cash out on his sellouts of the 99% of the country. His “honorable” excuse will be that he can’t win and it’s best that he steps aside and lets a new democratic face run that has a better chance of keeping those nasty republicans out of the oval office. If he can get his approval ratings low enough, he’ll have his cover. And so he’s trying to damage his approval ratings while still remaining personally popular … he craves that popularity … and keeping the obama brand strong. So far, he has been able to walk that fine line by playing this bullshit role than he’s too good for dc, that he wants to do good, but he’s too nice of a guy to do what is necessary to do it.
Now he’s got to walk that fine line a little bit faster because that election is only 12 months away. Let’s see if he falls off and brings his brand down along with him.
Z
These “facts” are well-”known”:
Once presidents are elected to their first term, a desire to have a second term becomes embedded into their dna. It is therefore impossible that they would want to cash out and live a life of luxury rather than run for a second term.
So, we know that obama wants a second term and wants to be president while one of the worst periods of our nation’s history play out partly due to the odious policies he has helped to put into place. That’s becoz he’s either helpless due to have been inflicted with the 2nd-term germ OR becoz he truly believes that massive public expenditure cuts are going to lead to a stronger economy and higher employment which will lead to the country continuing to join him in a celebration of his existence.
And even if the impossible was possible and obama didn’t want to run again, then he would simply announce on national tv that he was forsaking a second term to move on to better opportunities as a motivational speaker for the goldman sachs and petey petersons of the world.
Z
Larue: Could this be an early salvo for PUMA n HRC across the land?
Me: That’s where I suspect this may be heading.
Z
(This ad is somebody spamming FDL during the night.)
From Oakland. The stakes are being raised.
This is a DISASTER for Obama’s reelection. She can cut him off from most of the regular Dem donors with nothing but a phone call. That’ll make the Wall St. donations seem that much bigger and make ObamaLLP even more eager to please.
Were I Obama, I’d be on the phone with her trying to correct this. But it’s probably busy.
Boxturtle (Somebody should ask her to support a primary challenger)
Well, well, well. The pipeline corp will just have to up its donations to O to make up for Susie’s shortfall, and then collect it back with 1000% ROI from the taxpayer once O is reelected.
I’m sure Obama knows how to cope. Call her names in public and tell her to shut up and ge behind him, isn’t that the usual strategy?
The script has already been written by the former Assassin-in-Chief.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-FibDxpkb0
My bet: the SS will basically evacuate the WH, leaving only security and janitors.
Boxturtle (Wouldn’t want Obama to have to look at all those DFH’s)
Many people on this site have been asking for alternative names/candidates for months….Let’s hear it again….Who do you want to top the ticket? OR: WHO would Suzie like??? Give her a call.
This might explain the WH trial balloon of postponing the Tar Sands announcement until after the election.
I think Obama just got knee-capped and I am applauding loudly. It’s always so nice to see karma at work.
More apropos: Does the President CARE that he is basically funding the Koch Brothers with this pipeline?
I honestly think the answer is No.
Well, michael Moore has put the kool aid cu down.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/26/michael-moore-obama-first-term-heartbreaking/
“Well, it was either that or he actually believed in a lot of what they believe in,” Moore explained. “Goldman Sachs was his number one contributor, and the first thing he did was appoint these two guys, Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, to run our economic policy here. And these are guys that were completely in the pocket of Wall Street. So he set out right from the beginning — I mean, Wall Street set the tone and set the policy.”
“So, he might actually just believe that. That may be just the sad, sad part about Barack Obama, that not that he’s too timid or that he’s too compromising, but he actually believes in a lot of what they believe in. I hate to say that.”
‘Listen to this audio from BBC’s Radio 5, broadcast Oct. 24, 2011.’
This has yet to get any play here, and he’s not talking like this on American media, yet.
It would be farther away from credulity, publicly, that he has been to date for him not to have an inkling of this, it is a big step for Moore to verbalize what most here have been pounding tables for years.
Warren. Feingold. Franken. Hell, ANYBODY to the left of Obama.
Boxturtle (And I told Popeye yesterday I’d support him)
I think we can all now see with the way the police have cracked down on OWS that if voting mattered it would be illegal. O may for his ego want a second term but either way he is set for life and his and his family will be part of the 1%
Keystone pipeline will pass they might delay it till after the election, but it will pass. Putting a candidate to run against O is a waste of time. The system is so corrupt and out of control that even if this person was a ‘saint’ s/he would achieve little.
Barry Zero & the Kochsucker Bros are in the: You Scratch My Back, I’ll Scratch Yours position. They are mutually funding each other. Do you really think that the Kochs aren’t giving O & the Clintons money to do their bidding???
O isn’t relying *just* on powerful “Democratic” fund-raisers like Thompkins Buell, to get HIS.
None of them will run against Obama.
if mm is just now getting to “heartbreak” over obama, the next 5 years will be long gone before mm gets to thinking about maybe doing something about it
the bus has left the station and you’re either on the bus or you’re off the bus
Eh? Obama will just elsewhere to get his funding, if that’s what wanted or needed by Obama’s 1% Overlords. I’m happy to learn about what Thompkins Buell is saying and doing, but, sadly, I seriously doubt it’ll be a big “dent” in any funding that is needed by O. He’ll just get more buck$$ from his TRUE backers: the rightwingers.
But perhaps they’d run if Obama would get his corrupt, selfish ass out of the way.
Sadly I have to agree with you, albeit, if we could find a reasonable candidate to challenge Zero, I’d be happy to help out and consider voting for them.
The whole system, though, is insanely corrupted. That is factual.
obama, right now, is collecting more $ from wall street than ALL THE REPUBLICANS PUT TOGETHER
susie can keep her professional left cash, o knows where the real money is
Recommended, Teddy. Thanks for catching this. Good info to know.
PUMA?
So, you’re casting Obama in the part of Nancy Kerrigan? and Ms. Buell as Tonya Harding?????
Interesting.
Any number of the “Hollywood Mafia” are also disenfranchised.
NOt to mention the recent loss of the pro-marijuana crowd.
again, however, not gonna happen
the democratic party simply cannot be salvaged until obama is out, either after a second term or by losing in 2012
for the time being, third parties provide the only alternative
i’m going green in 2012 across the board
First I’ve heard of this. Is this going to be like the Armies of the Night, where they tried to levitate the Pentagon?
In any case, this lady sounds like she’s got a lot of guts and integrity; more power to her, less to corporate hacks like Obama.
A challenge to a sitting president from within his own party is PRETTY darn rare. It would take somebody with major cajones and mucho dinaro.
Info on the November 6 White House Encircle
http://www.tarsandsaction.org/
Obama reminds me of a mafia style or corporate raider bust-out.
First step, take over the company. Second, max out it’s credit lines and default on payments or outsource employment and sell off assets. Third, Profits!!!
O Sellout really is the Neoliberal Trojan Horse. As a Democrat can only do, he attempts to destroy SS and Medicare, and if not, he’s set the stage for the Repubs to do so by adopting their rhetoric and policies. The neolibs win either way because it doesn’t matter if Obama wins or a Repub does, the safety net is on the carving table.
““I don’t even know what he stands for,” said Susie Tompkins Buell…”
Susie, let me help. Barack Obama stands for…
Barack Obama.
And that’s all. He has no principles, no core beliefs, no interest or ability or desire to lead.
Is this the best the Dems have?
For the sake of the 99%, I hope not.
Yeah. Call her a Firebagger, slap hippies around a bit, then go french Lloyd Blankfein’s ass to make up the difference in funding.
Good on her! I hope she gives the money to OccupyTogether instead.
Sorry, but I really have had enough of PUMAs to last me a lifetime.
It just so happens that Ms. H Rodham Clinton is PUSHING for the pipeline!
The amazing thing is that it only took two years for the left to wake up. The right never did, it just got crazier and crazier.
Greenharper, if you are asking what PUMA stands for it is ‘Party Unity My Ass’, a response from Hillary supporters during the primary in 2008 who thought, among other things, that Obama stole the nomination and therefore the PUMA’s were not going to support Obama in the election.
Outside the W Hotel? Makes all the sense in the world. Tone-deafness is their strong suit.
Time for a Third Party….A strong Progressive Party of new faces owing no favors. And…as long as Clarence Thomas sits on the court, the court is invalid. It is simply invalid. 99%.
Yes, she is….she is little different from her husband. Deceptive and dishonest. I fired and shunned her.
ESPRIT: Union Busters
I thought that rang a bell from my SF days:
http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=ESPRIT:_Sweatshops_Behind_the_Labels
One critical difference between a progressive and a liberal? Progressives believe in and understand the critical structural importance of unions.
Screw Ms. Tompkins Buell and the boat that she floated in on.
Rev Bev: your sycophantic appeal that we let Ms. Buell know who SHE should support saddens me. Let’s get real, take our country back and US decide, how about it?
Fundraiser is saying what many of said before the election in 2008:
We need a FIGHTER.
Recommended Teddy I hope more donors refuse to support him. He is a disaster for the 99%.
Yup. He’s crying all the way to the Wall Street banks.
Poor, poor President! A little blip on his on his path to re-election funding?
Now, what might be significant is Buell’s actively and visibly protesting against Obama. That’s because she may be able to get people voting against Obama, or at least not for him. Also, she may be able to damage his recruitment for GOTV efforts. This was basically the point I made in PCCC delivers a credible political threat to Obama. Money isn’t everything…
It’s too bad progressives and liberals were so timid in the early days of Obama’s presidency. They may have pushed him in a more people-friendly direction.
I doubt Obama can be pushed, much, at this point. I mean, after he’s “pivoted” towards job, he pushes a NAFTA-like trade deal that’s going to cost us 159,000 good paying jobs. He’s the same old snake he’s always been, just marketing things a little different. He may make some helpful efforts (such as the recent push to help out with student loans), but he probably would have tossed the hoi polloi a few crumbs, anyway, as part of the calculus for doing the minimum to make the Dems’ 2012 prospects look reasonable.
It’s probably a better use of time and energy to made a modest effort to spread the meme of abandoning Obama at the voting booth, but to instead focus more on Obama’s ‘henchmen’. Once again, I recommend targeting 5-10% of Obama’s Democratic legislator accomplices, and making clear that they are being thrown under the bus in large part because they colluded with Obama.
Unfortunately, there’s still no appreciable guerrilla type voting bloc insurgency that operates within and without the Democratic party, that would run at least Full Court Press (i.e., minimalist) types of Congressional campaigns in 2012. The rapid spread of OWS suggests to me that that is still possible. I have to be pessimistic, but certainly if a Buell wanted to make a BIG difference in 2012, I should think that she could channel her fund-raising talents in this direction.
Note to Buell: Obama is probably a lost cause. The main value in dealing him a loss, at this point, is to send a message to the Dems that they will hopefully remember in future presidential campaigns. The main value would be as a focal point for more intelligent voting by the public, thinking and acting as voting blocs, at the expense of being resigned to imitate party lemmings.
HOWEVER, THAT DOESN’T MEAN CONGRESS IS A LOST CAUSE. In particular, it may be possible to replace some of these jerks with better people, and not just with Republicans.
but a big winner for the 1%ers. They will reward him handsomely.
Proves my point that the difference b/t a rich R and a rich D is very little. This conflict is rich vs. everyone else period.
Greenharper, I am no fan of President Obama these days but this certainly makes me think PUMA and the pissed off Hillary supporters may be behind this. In my county these ladies don’t hesitate to vote for Republicans that DO NOT represent their interests because they are still outraged that their candidate Hillary Clinton lost. Maybe I’m wrong and this is simply another democrat who is appalled at Obama’s performance. I sincerely hope we’re both wrong.
Yes that is a given. *g*
She sees the writing on the wall for the Democratic Party under the current administration. As a long-time fund raiser, her time horizon stretches out past 2016, where Obama’s ends.
Obama does not have a base. People flocked to him because he seemed to offer intelligence and hope, and got scammed. They are not going to forgive and forget. If Romney wins the Thug nomination, which seems increasingly likely, a lot will simply not vote for President. He’s in good with the 1 per centers, but their vote will go to a bona fide Republican.
’bout a month before the mid terms, Jane wrote a post about DNC not listening to their own pollsters and continuing along their tone deaf It’s Bush’s Fault !™ ways — in it she included Soros’ dissatisfaction with their crap about marijuana – Jane included that there were “others” equally dissatisfied with both policies and messaging
I hope Ms Tompkins-Buell’s recent statements brings more of these out from the shadows
great catch Teddy, thanks and recommended !
Obama the Trojan Horse
The main reason no one primaried OBAMA is because he is the 1st black president.
The MOTU that created OBAMA knew their OBAMA Trojan Horse skin color would protect him from the Left and the Majority of Intelligent Americans.
Susie Tompkins Buell statement says something else? Obama’s poll numbers are a lot lower than the corporate media reports.
Obama inner circle knows his poll numbers are very, very, soft.
Susie Tompkins Buell statement is also a signal to Dems seeking re-election, “AVOID OBAMA at all cost”
The Dem party civil war has begun! the days of Blue Dog dems are about to come to an end.
If Obama can’t win support from the Susie class, his political fortunes are in shambles!
More and more Dems will now attack OBAMA,
Why?
OWS has taken the Dem Base from the phony DEMS in DC.
OWS is going to set the DEM agenda, not OBAMA
This signal is much more powerful to “DEMOCRAT$” than anything #OWS has done or may ever do. If Progressive $$$$ drys-up, their faux Democratic asses are done. I’ve been screaming for months that Progressives, Labor, and non-Washington “Democrats” have choices. We don’t have to accept the non-choice of Obama v. Romney. Obama is Romney and vice versa – same Corporation, different CFO. Before we can fight the Republicans successfully, we must take back the Democratic Party(if anything is left worth using), and the first step is defeating all the worthless poverty pimps and corporate whores that line the corridors of the White House and Congress. If the choice is Obama v. Romney, we all lose if the post election headlines are anything other than, “Progressives abandon Obama!”
yup, the black thing is the coup de grace
a masterstroke of cynicism
In Little League we used to say (harassing the opposing team) “We need a picher not a belly itcher.”
I think that’s in the “public domain” if anybody wantsa to use that.
Obama v Romney would be the ideal match-up to increase OWS’s popularity.
Are you helping to start one?
Apologies: strike “sycophantic.” Unnecessary attack-like verbiages. Begging forgiveness all rest still right over and out.
I still fail to see a problem with the question and curiosity about her alternative candidate? To each his/her own. Inquiring minds…so to speak,
Wow! This is huge
Huge
Everybody in Zero’s campaign needs to sit up and take notice
In street terms Obama’s more of a “catcher”.
It’s the protest against the Keystone XL Pipeline.