More than a dozen current or former ambassadors were listed by the 2008 campaign as being in the top tier of bundlers — fund-raisers who collected a minimum of $500,000 in checks from other donors and bundled them together. The campaign does not disclose specific figures above $500,000; the total for several of these people most likely ran into the multimillions…
A few of Mr. Obama’s fund-raisers cycled through their diplomatic posts quickly enough to be back in time for this election. Matthew Barzun, a technology executive who served as ambassador to Sweden from 2009 to 2011, is the current national finance chairman of the Obama campaign. In 2008, he was deputy to the finance chairwoman, Penny Pritzker…
Political appointees to high-profile ambassadorships are often greeted with skepticism abroad as cronies of the president. But they also bring a pre-existing relationship with the president. Mr. Obama, in announcing the appointment of Mr. Roos to Japan in 2009, noted, “He’s somebody who will be able to advise me directly on issues that may arise and opportunities that may arise in the U.S.-Japanese relationship.”
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