It wasn’t all bad news for Mitt Romney in London this week: The projected Republican nominee will bring home $2 million from fundraisers with the British banking community, according to several reports Thursday night.
From the New York Times:
Romney held a fund-raising reception and a more exclusive dinner here on Thursday that included some of the top American financiers working in London. The firms they represent run the gamut from private equity funds, hedge funds and big investment banks like Goldman Sachs and J. P. Morgan — all of which have substantial business hubs in London’s financial district.
Before Romney’s Olympics meltdown, the London fundraisers were expected to net significant attention, especially from Romney critics eager to point out that Romney was rubbing elbows with a group of notorious bankers linked to the country’s LIBOR scandal, and hold it up as another example that Romney is the rich man’s candidate.
The Brits — and Americans — who gathered for Romney’s London fundraisers were reportedly more welcoming than the politicians and reporters who chided him repeatedly Thursday.
“I attended the event, and I was surprised at the size and enthusiasm of the crowd. Just estimating, I would say there were more than 150 people there,” longtime Republican operative and lobbyist Ed Rogers wrote on his Washington Post blog. “The ex-pats in attendance shared the urgency to get rid of President Obama — because of the damage his presidency is doing to America — that I witness in the States among Romney supporters.”
In an ironic twist, the unexpected Romney Olympic gaffes, and the viral videos and entertaining British tabloid headlines they generated, may have allowed Romney’s banking fundraisers to slip under the radar.
Romney still played it safe, however.
The Times reports he “steered clear of the Libor scandal over interest rates” in his remarks at one London fundraising event.
