Billionaire Decides Not to Target Obama

There have been a lot of multimillionaires and very wealthy people who have thought about getting involved in the presidential elections, whether it is because they are simply ambitious about the elections and candidates or because they agree or disagree with a candidate so much. The latest to grab the attention of people around the nation was a wealthy businessman, Joe Ricketts, who is actually the founder of TD Ameritrade. Ricketts was joined in on a plan to flood airwaves with personal attacks against the current President of the United States, Barack Obama.

Ricketts is known for being a philanthropist but he is also a billionaire too. He has done a few different things when it came down to politics. However, last week, he was featured in a New York Times article that said he was basically contributing nearly $10 million toward an advertisement campaign that would be against Barack Obama, basically attacking him. The advertisements were going to basically say that Obama is nothing more than a metrosexual man, a black version of former president, Abraham Lincoln. Mitt Romney, a Republican candidate, did not want to be part of this suggestion and moved away from being involved with it by all means necessary. Although Romney is against Obama as well, he does not want to be part of an advertisement that is basically racially charged. Shortly after that, Ricketts decided to basically trash this idea too.

In the meantime, the president for the fund, Brian Baker, said that it was only a proposal and that Mr. Ricketts did not come up with the idea and chose not to accept the idea, only listening to the suggestion of it and the possibility of going in that direction. In a time where presidential candidates lead to tons of advertisements targeting one another as the race heats up, there is more room for wealthier individuals to spend on campaigns as a way of promoting the candidate that they agree with or going against a candidate that they do not agree with. Candidates can receive many benefits from the spending of wealthy individuals but there are also risks, as personal attacks against candidates can make them look bad. Romney wanted to make it very clear that he was not okay with the campaign. Instead, he wants his campaign to be about the future and how he can help America, not about bashing the current president.

In the meantime, it is quite interesting to see Ricketts on the other side of the fence. He was once a Democrat but became a Republican later on in life. He has a daughter named Laura, an open lesbian woman, who supports Obama and has even raised nearly a million dollars for him.