Obama raises California cash for race’s last month

JOSH LEDERMAN

STEVE PEOPLES

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — Fresh off his strongest fundrais­ing month this year, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama is look­ing to raise mil­lions of dol­lars from celebri­ties and wealthy donors in Cal­i­for­nia with just one month left in a tight­en­ing race.

The two-day swing through the solidly Demo­c­ra­tic state high­lights the crit­i­cal role that fundrais­ing will play in the campaign’s final weeks as Obama and his Repub­li­can rival, Mitt Rom­ney, esca­late their bar­rage of tele­vi­sion ads in com­pet­i­tive states like Ohio. The pres­i­dent is to return there Tuesday.

Rom­ney, cam­paign­ing in up-for-grabs Florida, sought to build on the momen­tum from a debate per­for­mance last week that even Democ­rats con­ceded was “mas­ter­ful.” The Repub­li­can told a crowd of about 12,000 in Port St. Lucie that he had enjoyed him­self, tick­ing off a list of Obama short­com­ings he said he had exposed dur­ing the first debate.

“Now of course, days later, we’re hear­ing his excuses,” Rom­ney said. “And next Jan­u­ary we’ll be watch­ing him leave the White House for the last time.”

As Rom­ney fin­ished speak­ing spoke, some­one in the crowd of sup­port­ers behind him held up a giant Israeli flag along­side smaller Amer­i­can flags, under­scor­ing the ampli­fied role that for­eign affairs and the Mid­dle East is play­ing as the pres­i­den­tial race draws to a close. Rom­ney on Mon­day plans a major for­eign pol­icy address at the Vir­ginia Mil­i­tary Insti­tute, intended to throw Obama back on his heels over his han­dling of unrest in Libya and elsewhere.

Obama cam­paign spokes­woman Jen­nifer Psaki, dis­miss­ing what she called Romney’s fourth or fifth attempt to explain his global inten­tions, said the bar is high for Rom­ney to con­vince vot­ers he’s pre­pared to be com­man­der in chief.

“We are not going to be lec­tured by some­one who’s been an unmit­i­gated dis­as­ter on for­eign pol­icy every time he sticks his toe in the for­eign pol­icy waters,” Psaki said aboard Air Force One as Obama made his way to California.

Even as Rom­ney sought to reap fur­ther rewards from his debate per­for­mance, a string of good news for the pres­i­dent threat­ened to steal the for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts governor’s spotlight.

A jobs report Fri­day show­ing unem­ploy­ment at the low­est lev­els of Obama’s pres­i­dency was quickly fol­lowed Sat­ur­day by a fundrais­ing report show­ing Obama and Democ­rats had raised $181 mil­lion in Sep­tem­ber. It was their best fundrais­ing month of the cam­paign, but fell short of their record $190 mil­lion raised in Sep­tem­ber 2008 as the pres­i­dent cam­paigned for his first term.

Romney’s cam­paign has not released its report for the month, and Repub­li­cans sought to down­play Obama’s finan­cial advan­tage. The party’s national chair­man, Reince Priebus, said he had been count­ing all along on being out­raised by Obama and Democrats.

“This isn’t going to come down to money. This is going to come down to heart,” Priebus said. “We’ll beat them on the ground, and we’ll have all the money we need to be competitive.”

After trail­ing Rom­ney in the money race for most of the sum­mer, Obama is back on top and pulling out all the stops to keep it that way. In what will be his final fundrais­ing trip out West this elec­tion, Obama is enlist­ing his celebrity pals — from actors to singers to chefs — to donate to his cam­paign and encour­age their fans to do the same.

In one event alone, a late-night soiree high above the Los Ange­les sky­line, Obama expected to rake in $3.75 mil­lion. Wolf­gang Puck’s WP24 in the Ritz-Carlton hotel will host the $25,000-per-person event for about 150 supporters.

For­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton was to join Obama ear­lier Sun­day for a more inti­mate gath­er­ing with elite, long­time donors at the home of enter­tain­ment mogul Jef­frey Katzen­berg. Then on to the main event: A star-studded con­cert at the Nokia The­atre with enter­tain­ment by actor George Clooney and musi­cal guests Ste­vie Won­der, Jon Bon Jovi and Katy Perry.

As Obama played for Cal­i­for­nia cash, his sur­ro­gates took to the talk shows to pound the theme that Romney’s suc­cess in last week’s debate was propped up entirely by dishonesty.

The pres­i­dent “was a lit­tle taken aback at the brazen­ness with which Gov. Rom­ney walked away from so many of the posi­tions on which he’s run, walked away from his record,” said David Axel­rod, a top Obama strate­gist. “That’s some­thing we’re going to have to make an adjust­ment for in these sub­se­quent debates.”

At the same time, Ann Rom­ney was work­ing to soften her husband’s image, a fre­quent refrain as Romney’s cam­paign seeks to broaden his sup­port among cen­trist vot­ers in the race’s final weeks. Intro­duc­ing her hus­band on Sun­day, Mrs. Rom­ney called him “a good and decent per­son” who had helped oth­ers through­out his life.

“Now we’re going to get a chance for him to really care for oth­ers, because we’re going to have the chance to see him get peo­ple back to work again,” she said.

Both cam­paigns were prep­ping their run­ning mates for Thursday’s vice pres­i­den­tial debate — and work­ing to keep expec­ta­tions low lest their can­di­date underperform.

On Sun­day Priebus called Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden “a gifted ora­tor,” while for­mer House Speaker Newt Gin­grich, R-Ga., who chal­lenged Rom­ney in the GOP pri­mary, sug­gested Paul Ryan would hold back on any hos­til­ity out of respect for Biden’s sta­tus as a senior statesman.

While in Cal­i­for­nia, the only offi­cial pres­i­den­tial busi­ness for Obama comes Mon­day in Keene, Calif., where he will des­ig­nate as a national mon­u­ment the home of Latino leader Cesar Chavez, the founder of the United Farm­work­ers Union who died in 1993.

Yet even that move has polit­i­cal over­tones, res­onat­ing with some His­panic vot­ers — a cru­cial bloc in Obama’s 2008 coali­tion and a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of his 2012 plan to keep Rom­ney at bay.

Posted by AP News on Oct 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.