Indian-Americans loosen purse strings for Obama

The Indian-American community, having the highest per capita income among the ethnic communities in the US, appears to have opened up its wallet for the Obama campaign, but its contribution is far less than that of 2008.

The Mitt Romney campaign, which last week at Republican National Convention wooed the community by inviting a record number of Indian-Americans to address the event, does not appear to have been successful in getting a pie into the Indian-American money bag, the list of major Romney donors available from open source documents indicate.

Florida-based Dr Akshay Desai appears to be the only Indian-American to have raised more than $1 million for the Romney campaign, which unlike the Obama campaign, has remained very secretive in revealing the list of its major donors.

Desai has been named as Romney’s ” stars and stripes” – the small group of top fund raiser for the campaign.

He is also the only Indian-American serving on the Romney national finance team. In fact, he was also a Romney bundler (major fund raiser) in his previous presidential bid in 2008.

“Republican Party donor base at all levels is very motivated and energized. I am very confident that we will out raise President Barack Obama in the month of August and every month leading up to November election. We will match and surpass president Obamas goal to have raised one billion dollars.

We are confident that we will have resources to get our voice out to the public and win the election on strength of our ideas,” Desai said.

If Desai is the only major Indian-American donor for the Romney campaign, the list of bundlers made public by Obama campaign names nearly half a dozen who have raised between half a million to one million dollars.

Post-skit, Barack still a ‘huge’ Clint fan

US President Barack Obama has said he is a great fan of the Hollywood icon Clint Eastwood who criticised him in an odd Republican National Convention speech in which he used an empty chair as a stand-in for Obama. Obama was coy when asked if he was offended by the performance. “I am a huge Clint Eastwood fan,” Obama told USA Today. When asked if he was offended by Eastwood’s interview, Obama said, “One thing about being president or running for president – if you’re easily offended, you should probably choose another profession.”