President Barack Obama has already held more re-election fundraising events than every elected president since Richard Nixon combined, according to figures to be published in a new book.
Citing the new book, the Daily Mail reports that Obama is also the only president in the past 35 years to visit every electoral battleground state in his first year of office.
In 2008, Obama vowed to "launch the most sweeping ethics reform in US history" and said that if elected he would "make government more open, more accountable and more responsive to the problems of the American people."
And in January, during his State of the Union speech, Obama bemoaned the “corrosive influence of money in politics,” the Mail points out. The following month, he reversed course and announced he was allowing cabinet members and top advisors to speak at big money events for so-called super PACs – outside groups raising money for his re-election.
The book, “The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign,” by Brendan J. Doherty, gives figures to prove that Obama is more preoccupied with being re-elected than any other commander-in-chief of modern times.
Doherty found that Obama had held 104 fundraisers by March, compared to 94 held by Presidents Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton and George W. Bush combined.
But since then, Obama has held another 20 fundraisers, bringing his total to 124. Carter held four re-election fundraisers in the 1980 campaign, Reagan zero in 1984, Bush Sr.19 in 1992, Clinton 14 in 1996 and George W. Bush 57 in 2004.
And while Carter visited eight out of 18 battleground states and Reagan seven out of 17. Bush Sr., Clinton and the younger Bush all visited around three-quarters of battleground states. Obama went to all 15 within his first 12 months.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/obama-fundraisers-clinton-reagan/2012/04/29/id/437440
