President goes from policy push in N.J. to Manhattan fundraisers

NEW YORK CITY – President Obama on Wednesday traveled through a bleak, industrial setting in Edison, New Jersey to meet with small business owners and push the Senate to act on his small business tax cut and lending package.

Hours later, Obama was in Manhattan, attending high-dollar fundraisers at the glitzy Four Seasons hotel and the home of Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue magazine and the inspiration for the movie “The Devil Wears Prada.”

Fifty people showed up at each closed press fundraiser at a cost of $30,400 per person, leading the Republican National Committee to joke that “the president wears Prada.”

Republicans were only too happy to criticize Obama for catering to the elite New York crowds while unemployment hovers near 10 percent, but a White House official dismissed the optically conflicting events as part of the president’s job.

“Obviously we’ve focused on the economy today,” White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters on Air Force One. "[Wednesday] evening, the president is doing what the president traditionally does, which is helping to raise money for the campaign season as things approach. 

“I think that, in the same sense, the president has a wide variety of things that he has on his schedule every single day. Today is one of those days and he’s wearing a couple different hats.”

Burton rejected the idea that Obama is taking his eye off the economy for even a second.

“The president is doing everything he can to get this economy moving in the right direction,” Burton said. “If you take a look at where we started and where we are now, we’ve obviously been able to make a lot of progress, [but] the president isn’t satisfied.”

In New Jersey, where Obama visited the Tastee Sub Shop, the unemployment rate mirrors the 9.6 percent national rate.

Obama joined the owners of the Edison sub shop and other small businesses to push his small business tax credit, and he blasted Republicans for not signing on to legislation the president said represents a lot of GOP ideas.

“I know it’s no secret that we’ve confronted a lot of partisan politics over the past year and a half,” Obama said. “We’ve seen a fair amount of obstruction that’s had more to do with gaining political advantage than helping the country. But surely, Democrats and Republicans ought to be able to agree on this bill.”

Obama said that when he met with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) at the White House on Tuesday he told them “that the provisions of this bill are things that the Republican Party has said it’s supported for years: helping small businesses, cutting taxes, making credit available.”

“This is as American as apple pie,” Obama said. “Small businesses are the backbone of our economy.  They are central to our identity as a nation.  They are going to lead this recovery.  The folks standing beside me are going to lead this recovery.

The small business package represents the third and final part of a three-bill summer work period strategy Obama and congressional Democrats agreed to shortly after the Fourth of July recess.

The bills, which include Wall Street reform and extending unemployment insurance benefits, are designed to help Democrats campaign as working tirelessly on behalf of Main Street while painting Republicans as lapdogs for Wall Street.