The sun rises in the east: Wall Street bets big on Romney
Wall Street has thrown its weight behind alum Mitt Romney for president, according to new campaign data for 2011. No other candidate came close to the $12 million Romney's campaign raised directly in 2011 from individuals who work at financial firms and banks, which also includes cash from insurance and real estate companies, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
In addition to Romney's campaign, Wall Street executives opened their wallets to Restore Our Future, a super political action committee that supports Romney indirectly. It raised about $18 million from July through December 2011, federal records show, with contributions coming from people throughout the industry -- from workers at Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney founded, to Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), federal records show.
High-profile donors to the pro-Romney super PAC include hedge fund managers who each contributed a million dollars: John Paulson of Paulson & Co., Robert Mercer of Renaissance Technologies Corp., Julian Robertson of Tiger Management and Paul Singer of Elliott Management.
That Romney should be popular on Wall Street is no surprise, considering his long career in finance, which includedcreating Bain Capital in 1984. The financial sector contributed more than one in five dollars of the $56 million raised by Romney in 2011, according to the center.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/01/news/economy/wall_street_romney/
