Dr. Evil.
(Politico) — Bracing for a half-billion-dollar onslaught of outside GOP cash in 2012, President Barack Obama’s advisers are quietly working to bring back together the major donor base that produced a record-breaking fundraising haul in his first run for president.
In the past few months, Democratic National Committee aides have contacted several of Obama’s earliest financial backers to brainstorm about when and where to host the first money-raising events. Several big donors said they expect the Obama 2012 operation to open its doors this spring, with a string of fundraisers to generate the early cash needed to rebuild the president’s high-tech campaign operation.
But already some of Obama’s top financial backers are warning the White House: Raising money won’t be as easy this time around. . . .
Obama’s team is running into resistance in at least one key fundraising hub — New York City, where some of Obama’s biggest 2008 backers have bitterly protested last year’s passage of financial reform legislation and what they perceived as an unfair bad-mouthing of bankers during the debate.
To be sure, it’s early, and Obama and his team have proven to be prodigious fundraisers. In 2008, the president raised $745 million and became the first nominee in modern history to decline public funding and finance his campaign entirely with private money.
Hari Sevugan, a DNC spokesman, would not comment on the size of that list today. However, DNC campaign finance reports suggest it remains potent. The committee raised $16 million in October — and 97 percent of the contributions were from small donors.
But a billion dollar presidential re-election bid is unlikely to be launched or sustained for long exclusively with small donors. Even in 2008, Obama’s eye-popping online giving was matched with larger donations generated by roughly 700 big and small bundlers.