The story’s a day old but it’s not to be missed. How much filthy “bankster” lucre are we talking about here? Put it this way: He’s raised more than twice as much for himself and the DNC as Romney has … from Bain Capital.

Remember, this is a guy whose campaign is asking artists to work for free while he’s busy posing for photos with tycoons and carrying off giant sweepstakes-sized donation checks. I almost admire him for having the stones to try to frame himself as Occupy Wall Street’s new best friend.

Obama’s key advantage over the GOP field is the ability to collect bigger checks because he raises money for both his own campaign committee and for the Democratic National Committee, which will aid in his reelection effort. As a result, Obama has brought in more money from employees of banks, hedge funds and other financial service companies than all of the GOP candidates combined, according to a Washington Post analysis of contribution data. The numbers show that Obama retains a persistent reservoir of support among Democratic financiers who have backed him since he was an underdog presidential candidate four years ago… Obama has raised a total of $15.6 million from employees in the industry, according to the Post analysis. Nearly $12 million of that went to the DNC, the analysis shows. Romney has raised less than half that much from the industry, while Texas Gov. Rick Perry brought in about $2 million. No other Republican candidate has raised more than $402,000 from the finance sector, which also includes insurance and real estate interests.

In other words, O and the Dems have a structural advantage right now because he can raise money for the DNC whereas the RNC can’t get help from a candidate until Republicans choose a nominee. (If you exclude donations to the DNC, Romney actually leads Obama by more than $3 million.) The punchline is that, once the GOP nominee is unleashed and Wall Street money starts stampeding into the RNC, Democrats will segue effortlessly from months of quietly raking in as much finance cash as they can muster to months of demagoging the GOP as “the party of Wall Street” for having outraised them. Neat trick, that. They’ll end up being Occupy Wall Street’s best friend just in time for the general election after spending months stuffing their pockets to bursting with offerings from the banking world’s masters of the universe.

The NRCC rolled out an ad today tarring Democrat Steve Israel with the OWS crowd, but I think this clip of Paul Ryan via Think Progress shows a better way to handle them. No need for histrionic denunciations by leading Republicans; just remind those listening that corporate-government collusion isn’t exclusively a GOP problem, as our friends at Solyndra can tell you. Save the denunciations for the class-warrior-in-chief. Exit quotation: “What seems so ironic to me, or hypocritical, if you remember, it seems like yesterday that President Obama was saying things like, ‘we don’t have red states or blue states, we’re the United States of America, I want to be a uniter, not a divider, hope and aspiration.’ But what we’re getting is a commitment to division here.”