Sweet Follows the Money

From the Chicago Sun-Times Lynn Sweet:
"The Obama campaign prefers the emphasis be on the army of small donors who are giving -- and raising -- money for Obama. In truth, though, there are two parallel narratives -- and the other is that Obama is also heavily reliant on wealthy and well-connected Democrats.

While Obama took money from federal lobbyists and political action committees for his Senate war chests, he is not for his presidential campaign. That ban does not preclude non-lobbyists who have interests in federal matters or who lobby other government entities.

Those at the top of the Obama fund-raising pyramid -- people who pledge to raise at least $250,000 -- get a gold VIP lapel pin with the letters "NFC" fashioned in the campaign's logo.

The letters stand for Obama's National Finance Committee, and the group met in Washington on Wednesday for a retreat at a hotel with the Obama professional fund-raisers, campaign manager David Plouffe and chief strategist David Axelrod, among others. After raising $25 million in the first quarter -- creating a national network almost from scratch -- their challenge in the second quarter is to show they were not just grabbing the low-hanging fruit."