Obama campaign clocks in $82 Million for 2011

As potential opponents have spent the better part of the last year at each other's throats, the Obama campaign has been quietly building up their war chest. POLITICO reports that the President's reelection campaign raised $40 million in the last three months of 2011, ending the year with $82 million in the bank and $3 million in debt. A separate joint fundraising committee supporting Obama’s reelection and the Democratic National Committee, reported raising $24 million in the fourth quarter, spending $23 million and finishing the year with less than $1 million on hand.

The Obama campaign also released a list of 450 major bundlers who combined to collect at least $74.4 million for his campaign and the DNC. Some on the list of big money bundlers live up to the stereotype from Obama's critics of who most supports the President; entertainment elites living in Hollywood and New York.

Top fundraisers include movie producer Harvey Weinstein, DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, Eva Longoria, gay power couple James Costas of HBO and former White House interior decorator Michael Smith, and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. Wintour is the inspiration for Meryl Streep's character in The Devil Wears Prada.

Shamed investor and former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine was also on the list individuals having raised over $500,000 for the Obama campaign. AP notes that list includes two fundraisers linked to Solyndra LLC, the California solar company that received a $528 million federal loan and then later declared bankruptcy, prompting a federal investigation. Steve Spinner, an Energy Department adviser, raised at least $500,000 and Steve Westly, a venture capitalist who was an unpaid adviser to the department, raised between $200,000 and $500,000.