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Obama trying to boost party money, morale
2009-10-20
NEW YORK - The leader who prods his critics to put politics aside is doing anything but these days: President Barack Obama is campaigning for his party's future. Barreling Tuesday into several days of frenetic political activity, Obama the Campaigner has work to do in helping raise money and rally loyalists for lesser-known Democrats. Dollars aren't materializing as much as expected - even with a record-shattering fundraiser like Obama at the party's helm and working furiously to bring in cash. And, two weeks before off-year elections, Democrats are facing the prospect of losing hard-fought gubernatorial races in Virginia and perhaps New Jersey, contests that depend on the Democratic base and that to a certain degree are shaping up as a test of Obama's political strength. All that's a wake-up call for a party that controls the White House and Congress and for a president elected in an electoral landslide less than a year ago. So, as the Democratic standard-bearer, Obama is putting his time on the line and his prestige to the test with a blitz of fundraisers and campaign appearances. Besides money, he is asking donors for a burst of campaign energy to help get his domestic agenda passed, particularly health care reform. He does it knowing it's harder to get people jazzed up to lobby Congress than to win a groundbreaking election. "It now falls to us," Obama told donors at a $30,000-per-couple fundraiser Tuesday. "I hope that everybody here is willing to recapture that sense of excitement that comes from a big but achievable challenge, not a superficial excitement that comes from Election Day, but an excitement that comes from knowing we took on something that had to be taken on." At a second fundraiser focused on health care, Obama boasted of his first-year accomplishments, telling donors who paid $100 to $1,000 to attend that 'we've already had one of the most productive first years of any administration in decades." "I'm just getting started," he said. Obama stood to raise as much as $3 million for the Democratic National Committee from Tuesday's events, as well as an unspecified sum for Bill Owens, the Democrat in a special congressional election in upstate New York. His schedule included an official White House event, a visit to the Joint Terrorism Task Force center, meaning a smaller presidential travel bill for the campaigns while taxpayers pay the rest of the tab. In the coming days, Obama also will campaign for Democrats in New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Florida, a notable cashing-in of Obama's time as he fights to pass health care reform and tries to find a winning Afghanistan strategy. It's not just this year's races that are at issue but also the broader state of the Democratic Party - from cash-flow to enthusiasm - heading into next year. In the 2010 elections, Democrats will try to defend their majorities in Congress and seek to pick up governor's seats. The party in power typically loses congressional seats in the first election of a president's term. Obama certainly wants to avoid the fate of Bill Clinton, who similarly swept into office with youthful energy only to see his party lose control of Congress two years later. With all that at stake, Obama is choosing to insert himself intensely into the process while keeping in mind that he also could be associated with defeats should Democrats lose. Including Tuesday's events, Obama will have headlined 23 fundraisers so far in his ninth months, according to Mark Knoller of CBS News, who keeps a detailed log of presidential activities. This compares with six for President George W. Bush's first year in office, though his efforts were cut short because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Obama is calculating that he can't afford criticism from the Democratic Party's base supporters that he's not helping candidates. But there are also risks to full-throttle campaigning: His own power is being gauged. "If governors and members of the House and Senate come to the conclusion that Obama's personal support is not transferrable or that his supporters have not remained mobilized, the impact of his personal charisma will be seen as more limited than it was a year ago," said Kenneth Sherrill, a political science professor at Hunter College in New York. "All in all, he gets more credit for making a public effort than for sitting on the sidelines and watching Democrats at risk fend for themselves," Sherrill said. Overall, Democrats aren't in terrible financial shape. Through September, the committee that works to elect Senate Democrats brought in $33 million compared with $29 million for its GOP counterparts. The committee that works to elect House Democrats has raised $44 million compared with $27 million for the countering Republican effort. The Democratic and Republican committees that work to elect governors were almost even in fundraising during the first half of this year. But Democrats certainly aren't seeing the jaw-dropping sums of the 2008 presidential campaign year. And some Republican candidates are out-raising Democratic opponents in the money hunt in key 2010 races. Also causing concern for Democrats: The DNC hasn't raised as much as party operatives thought it would and the Republican National Committee under Chairman Michael Steele has exceeded Democratic expectations. The DNC has raised nearly $55 million, including $8.2 million last month, through September, compared with $59 million, including $8.7 million last month, for the RNC. Democrats are being hampered by a host of factors, including the recession. Obama also extended his ban on money from political action committees and lobbyists to the DNC, deep-pocketed Wall Street donors aren't ponying up as much as expected, and grass-roots supporters who were the bedrock of last year's campaign aren't as energized as they were when there was a clear objective - taking the White House from Republicans by electing Obama. "It's hard to raise money if you're in power. The ideological giver or party giver may be thinking, 'Didn't we just win this election?'" said Clyde Wilcox, a Georgetown University government professor who has studied giving to parties and candidates. "Also, Bush is gone, and a lot of the Democrats were motivated by anti-Bush feelings in previous cycles." ___ Sidoti reported from Washington.
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