He’s apparently getting around the Hatch Act by giving the donors the White House thrill in an event sponsored by the Democratic National Committee, but only actually asking them for the money later on.

Think of it as a variation of legislators voting a certain way on legislation and not getting paid by lobbyists to do so, but coincidentally finding themselves in a well-paying lobbying job after their constituents vote them out.

They’re not getting paid for the service, mind you. They just coincidentally get money from the same people later on. By sheer coincidence. You don’t need to pay for access to the president. It’s just appreciated if you fork over some dough later on.

Hope and Change, baby. Hope and Change.

Former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, former technology executive Bernard Schwartz and banking executive James Staley were among 30 well-connected figures in the business and finance world who met with President Barack Obama at the White House in March for an unusual economic discussion organized by the Democratic National Committee…

The March 7 meeting in the Blue Room of the residence has drawn attention and criticism because most of the attendees were donors or fundraisers and the session was arranged by the DNC. Good-government advocates said hosting the event at the White House was ill-advised…

“It is unclear why the Democratic National Committee would have been used to organize a meeting to solicit advice on the economy. Indeed, this meeting seems to walk a fine line between official and political with all of the attendant Hatch Act concerns,” Scott Coffina, who served as an ethics adviser to the Bush White House, told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“I would never have agreed to having such a meeting going on in the White House itself, in any room of the White House,” said Richard Painter, who also served as an ethics counsel under Bush. “I know there’s controversy about that. But I would not want to see those meetings, quite frankly, going on on federal property. What the legal restrictions are is somewhat more ambiguous.”

Why not rely on small donors instead of these big pay-for-access folks?

For two reasons, as Allahpundit points out: 1) The middle class is nowhere near as enthused about Team Obama in 2012 as they were in 2008; and 2) The idea of Obama being elected through small donations was always a myth. As a percentage of his total, he actually received less in small-donor contributions than Bush did in 2004.

Obama needs rich liberals to pay him for access. He knows that conservatives, both activist and rank-and-file, will be willing to spend a pretty penny to end his far-left administration in 2012. So he’s going to rake-in as much cash as possible from rich liberals, and they he’ll brag about the few small contributions he gets fueling his campaign.