Obama's Philly money man, Mark Alderman, less lonely now

Mark Alderman, chairman of Philadelphia law firm Wolf Block LLP, was co-chair of Obama's Pennsylvania finance committee and a member of his national finance committee. We spoke this morning after Obama's victory celebration in Chicago.
  Phillydeals: You're hoarse. You've been shouting?
  Alderman: In my life -- I'm 55 years old -- I have never done a back-to-back like the World Series and the Presidential Election.
  I went to see you one Friday in your office, back before the Pennsylvania primary last April. You were tired, and lonely. Gov. Rendell and Mayor Nutter had lined up most of the donors for Hillary Clinton.
  Right. It was me and a couple of black guys, and a couple of others. But we kept the faith.
  How'd you meet Obama, and why'd you back him?
  Before he announced, in January of 2007, I met Obama through (political consultant) David Axelrod, who I knew from his work on the Street campaign. David has been working for Barack for years and years.
   What drew me to him, he was, he is, the most different person who has ever run for president. Way beyond his skin color. His life experience drew me. Grew up in Hawaii, son of a Kenyan father, a Kansas mother, raised byhis grandparents, raised partly in Indonesia, all kinds of experiences no one who ran has ever had. I was blown away. I thought, in this troubled time in the world, this was exactly the kind of candidate we needed.
    I believed him him -- I never believed, initially, that he could be President of the United States -- but damned if we couldn't make it happen.
    After Clinton lost, you swung a lot of the Philadelphia establishment behind Obama.
    The Governor, the Mayor, everybody on their team had been with Hillary from Day One. Post primary, everyone threw themselves into it. It's a tribute to (Rendell, Nutter), and all their followers.
    The donors spread their bets. Comcast had people giving to multiple candidates. (Wolf Block, too.)
    Comcast is an equal opportunity participant in the political process. David (L. Cohen) himself was very powerfully involved. Jeff Shell, he works in (Comcast) programming, he moved here from L.A. two years ago, he was very early for Obama. He was one of the guys keeping me company in the wilderness. Also Chris Lewis, at Blank Rome, and Chris Booth, a former Wolf Block lawyer who now has his own firm. Rick Horowitz, (president of) RAF Industries, and of course (Lehman Bros. heir) Peter Buttenweiser. That was the entire Obama financial team in Pennsylvania, post-Iowa.
    What's everyone expecting, in exchange for their money and support?
    We got last night most of what we were hoping for, which was his election. That was honestly the overwhelming motivation for being involved with this man and this campaign.
    Right. And what else?
    Sure, I'm not going to pretend. There were people who were generous, who want appropriate opportunity to be heard on issues of importance to them.
    But it's going to be hard for President Obama to provide every one of his supporters that opportunity. He has a lot of supporters.