NEW YORK — President Barack Obama struck a confrontational tone with Republicans as he attended a high-dollar fund-raiser Monday night on Park Avenue.
“We are in a battle — a battle for the hearts and minds of America,” Obama told about 60 guests who anted up $35,800 each to attend the dinner. “This is going to be a tough fight over the next 16 months."
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The president, who unveiled his deficit cutting plan earlier Monday in a speech at the White House, expressed frustration with the GOP’s responses to his economic proposals.
“We have not had a willing partner,” Obama said. He cited “some irreconcilable differences” with Republicans about the steps needed to boost the recovery and said their response to his speech Monday amounted to “moans and groans.”
“It’s predictable,” he added.
Obama said actions to calm the financial markets and to prevent mass layoffs of state and local employees had “stabilized” the economy. However, he added, “We’ve stabilized it at a level that’s just too high in terms of unemployment and in terms of hardship all across America.”
The dinner took place in the home of Ralph Schlosstein and Jane Hartley.
Schlosstein is the president and CEO of Evercore Partners, a prominent investment bank. Hartley — who served in the White House under President Jimmy Carter — is now CEO of Observatory Group, LLC, an investment advisory firm.
Among those spotted in the crowd were Roger Altman, a founder and chairman at Evercore and treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, and Peter Orszag, who served as budget director to Obama.
Despite the well-heeled nature of the audience, Obama suggested at one point that the group was intimately familiar with the devastation caused by the economic downturn.
“A lot of people in this room have seen directly the damage that’s been done by this recession,” the president said. “Ordinary folks have been hurting badly,” he added later in his remarks, before commenting on the unemployment rate and other “hardship.”
Reporters were permitted to listen to and observe Obama’s six-minute speech, but were escorted out as he began to take questions from the donors.
Proceeds from the event will be split between Obama’s reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63892.html#ixzz1YSh63bIU
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