Opinion: When millions of dollars bring Barack Obama bad memories
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Imagine turning your back on millions. That may be what Barack Obama’s campaign is doing.
The campaign seems to be giving the brush-off to Sant Singh Chatwal, a wealthy New York hotel magnate who was one of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s biggest fundraisers. Some estimates placed the amount he bundled for her presidential campaign at $5 million.
Chatwal showed up three weeks ago when Clinton called 100 of her top donors to the Mayflower Hotel in Washington to urge them to embrace Obama’s candidacy. In some news accounts after the meeting, Chatwal was quoted as saying he would raise $10 million for Obama.
But when Obama appeared in New York last week for a round of fundraising, Chatwal was nowhere to be found, and Obama aides didn’t express any disappointment.
Obama spokesman Ben Labolt said in an e-mail that Obama “greeted Mr. Chatwal very briefly on a rope line” at the Mayflower in Washington, but there was no discussion of the projected $10 million.
What’s more, Labolt’s statement emphasized that Chatwal ‘does not sit on a fundraising committee, he has not fundraised for the campaign and we do not expect him to.’
The back story? While Obama challenged Clinton in the primaries, his campaign planted a private memo to some reporters –- a memo that eventually was intercepted by the Clinton camp and turned into a dust-up that lasted a few days.
The document, headlined ‘Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)’s Personal Financial and Political Ties to India,’ detailed the connections of Hillary Clinton and President Clinton to India and Indian Americans, one of whom was Chatwal.
Obama distanced himself from the memo at the time and phoned several Indian American activists to express his regret.
Chatwal could not be reached. But Chatwal’s spokesman Brandon Reynolds said he was unaware that Obama would not take Chatwal up on the $10-million offer. ‘I haven’t heard anything,’ he said.
-– Dan Morain