Obama ramps up the fundraising

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July 28, 2010

Obama ramps up the fundraising
Posted by Staff

President Barack Obama is accelerating his fundraising pace, inviting Democratic candidates to decide whether the money he draws is worth the Republican attacks that a presidential visit might also bring.

For some, it's no easy choice. Democrats need millions of dollars to defend dozens of House and Senate seats this fall. But Obama's approval ratings are sinking well below 50 percent in several key states.

Obama is headlining four Democratic fundraisers in three days, including one Tuesday night, and hosting another four events next week. For now he's playing it safe, holding the eight events in noncompetitive states or in a competitive place where he's sure to be embraced: his home state of Illinois.

As is true with most presidents, candidates from his party know there's often a political cost to the hundreds of thousands of dollars a presidential visit can net.

In Missouri, Republican Senate candidate Roy Blunt is airing a TV ad showing Democratic opponent Robin Carnahan campaigning with Obama during his July 8 fundraising visit to Kansas City. The ad says Carnahan would be a "rubber stamp" for Obama's policies.

A recent statewide poll for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV-TV found that 57 percent of likely Missouri voters disapprove of Obama's performance as president, while 34 percent approve. Among independent voters, the president's disapproval rate was 63 percent.

The poll showed Blunt leading Carnahan in the race to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Kit Bond.

Having the president visit "is a double-edged sword," said Brian Walsh, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Carnahan raised a lot of money from the event, he said, but it also provided grist for Blunt's new ad.

"We'd welcome him to campaign in states like Indiana, Kentucky, Arkansas," Walsh said of Obama. "These are states where his agenda is deeply unpopular."

White House officials say Obama will campaign vigorously throughout the nation. "The fall campaign boils down to a choice between those who want to keep moving forward and those that want to take us back to the policies that got us into this mess," said White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer. "The President will help make that case across the country."

Obama is clearly the biggest draw for Democratic donors in general, and he's spending significant time this week and next at events where guests have been asked to give the legal maximum of $30,400 per election cycle. Only one of the eight fundraisers is tied to a specific candidate: Senate hopeful Alexi Giannoulias of Illinois.

07/28/10 12:54 PM

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