The “high-school romance” between Barack Obama and Jamie Dimon has been over for a while, but now it seems the JPMorgan CEO may have found another. After an extended breakup, including some hurt feelings over the president’s demagoguing of “fat cat bankers,” it seems Obama has pushed his one-time supporter right into the arms of Mitt Romney. Dimon, a longtime Democrat and once a rumored Treasury secretary candidate, spent some quality alone time with Romney on Tuesday morning, “Page Six” reports. The pair continued their courtship later at Brasserie 8 1/2 in midtown at a fund-raiser hosted by JPMorgan hedge fund, Highbridge Capital. Dimon’s board seat at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York prevents him from publicly endorsing a candidate, but it’s clear what’s going on here. “Dimon will continue to look bipartisan, then work behind the scenes to get a Republican elected,” said one “insider” quoted by the Post.
Romney has so far raised twice as much money as Obama from Wall Street, with at least 100 donors who backed the president in 2008 switching sides. Dimon puts an influential, deep-pocketed face to that shift, and is clearly still smarting from the president’s put-downs and snubs.
“It’s never fair to punish everybody regardless of their behavior,” Dimon said last year of Obama’s anti-Wall Street push. “There are good banks and bad banks just like there are good politicians and bad politicians, and I’m not going to sit here and accept that somehow it’s OK.” With a warm smile and a soothing back rub — not to mention a business pedigree of his own — Romney has positioned himself for the rebound.
Obama’s top ‘fat cat’ strays [Page Six/NYP]
