Obamabots in disbelief.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Organizing for Action, the advocacy group supporting President Barack Obama’s agenda, is scaling back its fundraising efforts and cutting its paid staff in half as focus shifts to the approaching midterm elections, three Democratic officials said.
Formed last year from the remnants of Obama’s vaunted re-election campaign, OFA raised more than $30 million in its first 15 months as it worked to build support for Obama priorities like health care, immigration and climate change. But the group’s aggressive courting of big-dollar donors has troubled many Democrats who worry that OFA is siphoning sorely needed dollars from Democratic campaigns just as the party is bracing for a difficult election.
As of May 31, OFA will no longer solicit high-dollar contributions, according to an email obtained by The Associated Press. Kathy Gasperine, the group’s development director and a former Obama fundraiser, told top contributors it would “not be giving significant priority to seeking out new major donors.” […]
But the move follows public and private griping by Democratic groups who say OFA is diverting funds that would otherwise go to Democratic candidates, thus hindering the party in the midterms. After all, Democrats have fewer deep-pocketed donors than Republicans.
Case in point: The Democratic National Committee was still more than $14 million in debt in late March, more than a year after helping Obama get re-elected. As the next election approaches, that puts the DNC at a disadvantage compared to the Republican National Committee, which is debt-free.
Michael Fraioli, a Democratic fundraising consultant, said the news that OFA is scaling back would likely be welcomed by Democrats vying for attention from the same group of inundated donors.