We can only hope it costs him the presidency in 2012.

WASHINGTON (The Blaze/AP) — The elongated and often contentious debate in Washington over the nation’s debt has had a hefty price tag for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.

Officials expect to raise tens of millions of dollars less this summer than it did in the spring because negotiations over the nation’s debt limit forced Obama to cancel several fundraisers.

Obama’s campaign said Wednesday it canceled or postponed 10 fundraisers involving the president, Vice President Joe Biden and White House chief of staff Bill Daley in the past month because of the debt talks, scrubbing events in California, New York and elsewhere.

Only weeks after the president’s campaign reported collecting a combined $86 million with the Democratic National Committee, Obama’s team is trying to lower expectations about its fundraising juggernaut while signaling to its army of volunteers and activists that they need to fill the void.