President Barack Obama will attend his 100th reelection fundraiser Thursday night, and GOP officials are using the occasion to portray him as focused on politics, rather than on the nation’s stalled economy.
Obama has had 100 fundraisers since he announced in April that he would run for reelection. But according to a calculation by the Republican National Committee, Obama has had only about 25 recorded meetings with his Defense Secretary, Treasury Secretary or his Secretary of State over that period.
The President’s 100 fundraisers add up to 10 times as many town halls as he has had with with the public, 14 times as many press conferences, and 50 times as many joint meetings with all four leaders in the House and Senate, the RNC said in a statement. The statement is intended to shape media coverage of Obama’s planned four fundraisers in New York this evening.
A matching RNC video ends with the claim that “After four years of failed policies, he’ll need every penny.”
During the same period in 2003 and 2004, George W. Bush conducted 49 fund-raisers, according to CBS radio.
Obama’s has held more fundraisers than Bush and the RNC did for the entire 2004 campaign, according to RNC spokesman Sean Spicer.
Obama’s fundraisers even outnumber the 90 games of golf that he has played, Spicer announced via tweet.
The four Mar. 1 fundraisers are expected to raise more than $4 million dollars, and will include consecutive audiences of wealthy Wall Street professionals, culture-industry players and other interest groups.
Obama will fly to tonight’s New York fundraisers on Air Force 1, after visiting New Hampshire to give a campaign-style address on energy that his aides have described as a non-political, routine policy speech.