NY Times: major Clinton donor endorses McCain-Palin

I wish this was from Fox News, just to piss off some of the dum dums. But alas, this is from the New York Times!

September 17, 2008, 1:20 pm
Endorsements of the Rich and Famous
By Tobin Harshaw

“Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter and member of the Democratic National Committee’s Platform Committee, will endorse John McCain for president on Wednesday,” according to CNN’s Mark Preston.

“In an interview with CNN this summer, Forester did not hide her distaste for eventual Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. ‘This is a hard decision for me personally because frankly I don’t like him,’ she said of Obama in an interview with CNN’s Joe Johns. ‘I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.’ ”

“Irony truly is dead as Lynn Forester de Rothschild endorses John McCain on anti-elitism grounds,” responds Matthew Yglesias, who implies that Lady de Rothschild, the wife of the London banking family heir, Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, might have less-than-ideological grounds for her decision. He contuinues:

On an unrelated note, the stakes have rarely been higher in an election for extremely rich people than they are in this one. Barack Obama’s tax proposals don’t raise a ton of new net revenue and, as a consequence, have tended to be viewed as pretty moderate. But one reason they don’t raise all that much net revenue is that he’s offering large tax cuts to the majority of people and those offset the substantial tax hike he’s proposing on the rich.

Conservative blogger Robert Stacy McCain isn’t sure whether his candidate should welcome his new supporter:

This ain’t exactly going to swing the populist vote. And speaking of populists, the Rothschilds figure rather prominently in kook-fringe conspiracy theories. It’s like getting endorsed by the Bavarian Illuminati or the Tri-Lateral Commission. Not going to win you any friends in the tinfoil-hat/shortwave-radio crowd.

On the other hand, maybe the G.O.P. needed to improve its standing with the Glamorous Jet-Setting Wealthy Socialite demographic.

Maverick’s new job-creation plan? Mme. Rothschild hires every unemployed swing voter in Pennsylvania!

As for that demographic, it appears that Obama still has a pretty solid grip, as The Times’s Caucus blog reports:

Senator Barack Obama stood beneath the stars — surrounded by the ones from Hollywood — and tried to soothe the concerns of worrying Democrats here on Tuesday as he held the biggest fund-raising night of his campaign …

“A lot of people have gotten nervous and concerned. Why is this as close as it is? And what’s going on?” Mr. Obama said, speaking to about 300 people over dinner at the Greystone Mansion. “We always knew this was going to be hard — this is a leap for the American people.”
In back-to-back receptions, one that featured a brief performance by Barbra Streisand, Mr. Obama raised about $11 million for his campaign and the party’s general election efforts.

Democratic fund-raising officials confirmed the figure, which exceeded a previous one-night record for the campaign of $7 million last month.

“Having assured one group of elites that despite being awfully confused the American people are ‘basically decent’ and ‘basically sound,’ Barack Obama somehow sounded less certain last night at his Barbara Streisand fundraiser,” writes John McCormack at the Corner, taking issue with the candidate’s quote. ‘You’ve got to love that clear distinction between ‘we’ and ‘the American people.’ ”