Billionaire Warren Buffett Backs Obama For President

Democratic Senator Barack Obama today got a big (bucks) endorsement in his campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination and President: the richest man in the world, Warren Buffet, says he backs Obama:

Warren Buffett, the world’s richest man, is backing Barak Obama for US president and thinks current US economic policy will push the dollar lower against other global currencies

Buffett told a press conference here Monday he had offered support to both Obama and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton but that since it appeared Obama would win the party’s nomination, “I will be very happy if he is elected president.

“He is my choice,” Buffett said.

Commenting on the US economy, the 77-year-old investor who is known as the “Sage of Omaha,” stressed that fiscal, monetary and trade policies were of great importance.

“I think that the US has followed and is following policies which will cause the US dollar to weaken over a long period of time,” he said.

After voicing support for Obama, Buffett nonetheless noted the US economy had managed to do “awfully well” despite a depression, two world wars and many financial crises.

“They say in the stock market … buy stock in a business that’s so good that an idiot can run it because sooner or later one will,” he added.

This can’t be welcome news to Clinton, because it’s adding to the perception that there is a steady movement now to back Obama’s candidacy by party and business bigwigs.

Some of this movement can now be seen in some of Clinton’s big donors jumping ship:

Hillary Clinton’s top donors are starting to jump ship, and increasingly they’re paddling—checkbooks in hand—toward rival Barack Obama, a Daily News analysis has found.

The review of campaign finance data found that in March alone, some 113 top Clinton funders—namely those who had already given her the maximum $2,300 allowed by law—switched sides and gave to Obama for the first time.

The analysis, performed for The News by the Center for Responsive Politics, found only 26 Obama givers had forked over to Clinton during the same period.

While not exactly a gusher in the context of a Democratic primary that has already shattered fund-raising records, the trickle of donors away from Clinton is another sign of the former First Lady’s sinking fortunes—and the likely cascade to Obama.

“Once people think they know who the nominee is going to be, money just streams in,” said Stephen Weissman of the Campaign Finance Institute, noting that John Kerry went from being all but penniless to raising $1 million a day after he locked up the Democratic nomination in 2004.

“I think what happened with Kerry will happen with Obama as soon as it becomes clear—and I think it is clear—that he will be the nominee,” Weissman added.

Buffet was also a big backer of moderate Republican Arnold Schwazenegger and even advised him for a while. Schwarzegger had to distance himself from Buffett when the billionaire said property taxes in California were too low.

The importance of his backing Obama is the publicity it’ll get and the impact among wavering superdelegates. Buffett is a big name.