Obama Campaign Releases Bundler List

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On the heels of its fairly epic fundraising totals, the Obama campaign provided some more insight into where the Obama Victory fund got the $86 million it raised last quarter.

A good chunk of it came from bundlers, super-donors who are very rich, max out their personal fundraising amounts, and then call on their wealthy friends to do the same.

You can check out the full list of Obama bundlers posted by the campaign here. The Sunlight Foundation, which tracks campaign spending, has posted the list with links to each donor’s past giving history.

The breakdown: 27 bundlers raised more than $500,000, 41 pulled in $200,000-$500,000, 89 raised $100,000-$200,000, and 87 shook the trees for $50,000-$100,000.

The big names include Anna Wintour, Ari Emanuel, Jon Corzine and Jeffrey Katzenberg. All of have already raised more than a half-million dollars for Obama.

Of course, most of Obama’s campaign haul came from small donors. More than 550,000 people gave a total of more than 680,000 donations to the campaign last quarter. Ninety-eight percent of those were $250 or less.

Here are some highlights from the early coverage of the bundler list.

• Washington Post reports that the “nearly 250 bundlers” who raised more than $50,000 for Obama are “further evidence of an astonishingly successful fundraising effort by Obama even amid a struggling economy and mediocre approval ratings.”

• Politico‘s Ben Smith notes that the list shows the results of Obama’s efforts to further LGBT rights. Among the list of new bundlers are “newly energized gay donors,” including “Chicago’s Fred Eychaner, New York’s Jeff Soref and Charles Myers, Austin’s Eugene Sepulveda, and DNC treasurer Andy Tobias.”

• ABC News’ Devin Dwyer looks at the cloud around the big money silver lining. “The list of donors released today is also notable for who’s not there,” he reports. “Many of Obama’s biggest donors from 2008, more than 80 percent of whom received positions inside the administration, according to a recent report, are now limited in how they can participate in the campaign.”

“Other veteran bundlers from the last cycle have yet to commit to fundraising again,” Dwywer notes, “suggesting the enthusiasm for Obama that propelled their leadership [in fundraising activities] in 2008 has waned ahead of 2012.”

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