I’ve heard people openly wondering why the President hasn’t cracked down on the financial sector. They’re historically unpopular! The economy cannot recover without a crackdown! The people would love him for it!

I can give you 2.4 million reasons why Obama wouldn’t.

Last night Obama headed to the Upper East Side to wine and dine Wall Street.

The DNC fundraiser at tony restaurant Daniel cost attendees $35,800 each, and a source told Ben White at Morning Money that the event netted $2.4 million [...]

Marc Lasry was there, as expected. So was Orin Kramer.

According to Dealbook, the menu included: “Maine lobster salad with roasted beets, duos of Black Angus beef, braised short ribs with young spinach, and roasted tenderloin with stuffed potato and hen of the woods.”

The meal was prepared by Daniel Boulud himself.

The dinner was part of Obama’s plan to win back the group of financiers that helped him cruise past McCain in 2008, many of whom were turned off by the President’s labeling of them as “fat cats” near the beginning of his term.

Daniel Boulud himself!

Here’s the situation. You have a President who wants to get re-elected. You have a financial sector that is so thin-skinned that they take the phrase “fat cats” as a personal affront. You have a post-Citizens United world where campaigns get more and more expensive. This is not algebra, it’s first-grade mathematics.

You can make the argument that a successful four years economically would reap its own reward no matter how much money was thrown against Obama for re-election. You can make the argument that money isn’t the end-all be-all of politics anymore given the public’s fractured media diet, and the ability to reach voters over social media at a low cost.

That’s not the calculation of the President. And until there’s any countervailing force, any force that loses Obama more money than he makes at Wall Street fundraisers, he’ll continue to hold them.

There’s a systemic problem here, too, is my point.