Anxious Obama campaign plans high-dollar fall fundraising spree

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TheHill:

President Obama will host a series of high-dollar fundraisers in the coming weeks and is expected to add more events than usual after the Democratic National Convention.

The string of upcoming events reflects deep worry in Chicago about competing with the tidal wave of cash being raised by outside groups aimed at electing Mitt Romney.

The impetus for more and more big fundraisers just 98 days before the election is also in stark contrast with where Obama was in his matchup against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008, when he had a substantial financial advantage fueled by individual donations.

Obama has spent a considerable amount of time fundraising in recent days.

 

On Monday afternoon, he flew to New York to attend a fundraising dinner with 60 attendees at a cost of $40,000 per person. The trip came on the heels of high-dollar fundraisers in Washington, D.C. and Virginia on Friday, after a week of attending several fundraisers on the West Coast — including the campaign’s honey pot in Northern California.

 

Romney has also continued to attend his fair share of fundraisers, including two check-collecting stops in England and Israel.

 

 

But sources close to the Romney campaign say they expect to shift away from constantly hosting fundraisers, moving toward more public rallies and events in the weeks before Election Day, believing the priority at that point should be engaging swing voters with rallies and public appearances.

Obama and Romney are both in furious pursuit of campaign cash to fuel political ads. In the most recent spots, Romney’s campaign is hammering Obama over his “you didn’t build that” remark, while Obama’s campaign is responding with more attacks on Romney’s record at Bain Capitol.

 

 

The crush for cash could add more fundraisers to an already dizzying schedule for the president.

Asked whether Obama would shift to do more fundraising or host more rallies in the coming weeks, a campaign official — careful not to get ahead of the president’s schedule — said to “expect a balance of events, a combination of different kinds of events” for the foreseeable future.

But other sources acknowledged that the pressure to get more cash by putting Obama in front of donors is great.