Obama raises $29 million for campaign, Dem Party

JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press

Friday, February 17, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama raised more than $29 million for his campaign and for the Democratic Party in January, a strong fundraising month that put him ahead of the pace he set in the last quarter of 2011.

In a Twitter message Friday morning, the Obama campaign announced the president raised the money for his re-election effort, for the Democratic National Committee and related committees. The campaign raises money directly from donors or through a Victory Fund that splits proceeds with party efforts devoted to Obama's re-election.

The month's haul raises Obama's total combined fundraising for this election cycle to about $250 million. In the last three months of 2011, he averaged about $23 million a month.

That fundraising concluded before the campaign's announcement this month that, in a reversal, Obama would embrace the big big-money fundraising groups he once criticized and let them help in his re-election.

The campaign did not immediately provide a breakdown of the fundraising but said 98 percent of the January donations were $250 or less.

Presidential candidates must submit January fundraising reports to the Federal Election Commission on Friday. The Obama campaign's full report is expected later in the day.

The January numbers were being reported as Obama concluded a three-day swing of California and Washington that included eight fundraisers, most of them high-dollar events. All told, the president was expected to raise more than $8 million during the trip.

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spelchek 1 year, 4 months ago

Well look who's turning to "rich" people to get money for his Super PAC that he chastised the SCOTUS for ruling in favor of during his SOTU. OH NO!!! The very foreign influences that he warned us about might possibly influence his campaign. Hypocrite.

Sequoia 1 year, 4 months ago

"The campaign did not immediately provide a breakdown of the fundraising but said 98 percent of the January donations were $250 or less."

evenkeel 1 year, 4 months ago

President Obama is breathtakingly dishonest.  In 2008 he rejected public financing after pledging to participate in the system if his Republican challenger agreed to do the same.  His pledges are worthless because he is dishonest.  Joe Wilson was accurate. 
His State of the Union address and then the budget he recently submitted are two more examples of dishonesty and his deep cynicism.
An honest President would feel he owed it to the citizenry to impress upon them one central truth.  That one central truth must be this: we are not just broke, we are way beyond broke.  We are $16 trillion worse than broke.  We need to pay back $16 trillion to claw our way up to broke.  We are in an abyss of debt.  That is the truth.   We are the Brokest Nation in History.    
A dishonest leader, this President of ours, says: pay no attention to that unpleasantness.  It is icky.  Ignore it.  Delight in Obama's happy talk about green jobs!  (which do not produce energy or jobs)   Feed off of Obama's righteous anger when he blames bankers! (federal government interference inflated the housing bubble)  Obama fuels envy and resentment when falsely claiming the rich need to pay more! (though the honest truth is that the top 1 percent earns about 17 percent of all income and pays about 37 percent of all federal income taxes.  The top 3% pay as much taxes as the bottom 97%) 
What is needed is that each rational citizen (note that I qualify it) needs to pass this fact on to family, friends and neighbors ad infinitum: we currently have a President who takes wealth from producers and then wastes it and he wants to take even more, so as to waste even more. 
If Obama gets re-elected, it will not be because of Obamas hefty campaign financing, it will simply be because, in the United States of America in 2012, fools outnumber non-fools.

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