Tono de urgencia para apelar a los donantes

The Washington Post:

Leaked details of a plaintive phone call from President Obama to some of his biggest donors this weekend offered a rare and revealing look into the typically private rituals of big-dollar campaign fundraising.

The pitch also affirmed the campaign’s anxiety about lagging behind in the money race.

In the conference call made late Friday from a special campaign phone on Air Force One, a recording of which was obtained by the Daily Beast, Obama bemoaned the anonymous super PAC donations flowing to his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney.

“If things continue as they have so far, I’ll be the first sitting president in modern history to be outspent in his reelection campaign,” he said, according to the report.

If Democrats didn’t write checks, Obama warned, such Republican PACs could permanently alter the political landscape. “The special interests that are financing my opponent’s campaign are just going to consolidate themselves,” he said. “They’re gonna run Congress and the White House.”

(...) “In 2008 everything was new and exciting about our campaign,” Obama told the unidentified donors, according to the Daily Beast. “And now I’m the incumbent president. I’ve got gray hair. People have seen disappointment because folks had a vision of change happening immediately. And it turns out change is hard, especially when you’ve got an obstructionist Republican Congress.”

Such fundraising pitches aren’t unusual, since candidates seek to keep donors from feeling complacent, and Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt characterized the conference call as “routine.” But it echoes the urgent tone the Obama campaign has struck in recent appeals, which have raised the specter of Romney holding a significant cash advantage over Obama. “I will be outspent,” read the subject line of a Tuesday e-mail Obama sent his supporters.

The call from Air Force One, which apparently ran afoul of no laws governing the separation of official and campaign business, came just hours before the Saturday deadline for reporting June donations.