Obama to raise campaign cash in Michigan, once Romney's home turf
(CNN) - President Barack Obama returns to the fundraising circuit Wednesday after a weeklong hiatus to raise campaign cash in Michigan – the birth place of his all but certain GOP rival, Mitt Romney.
The president is expected to attend two events in the Detroit area Wednesday evening, according to an Obama campaign official. The first will be held at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, where 600 people, who have each paid at least $250, will be on hand.
- Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker
The Ford Museum has played host to national politicians in the past. Most notably, it was where Romney announced his first bid for president in 2008. The former Massachusetts governor was born and raised in Michigan and his father served as governor there.
A more intimate reception will follow at a private residence in Bingham Farms, Michigan, where 47 people – each of whom paid $10,000 – are expected to attend, according to the campaign official. All told, the president is likely to rake in close to $1 million for his campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
A swing state in recent presidential elections, Michigan appears to be a relatively safe bet for the president come next fall, buoyed by his support of the $80 billion government bailout of the auto industry three years ago. Still, a recent analysis by the Detroit Free Press showed Romney edging the president in fundraising from Michigan donors thus far, a signal that the Romney campaign is well-organized to contend there. And the most recent polling of Michigan voters indicates Obama holding only a narrow advantage over Romney.
Meanwhile, the White House has long counted the president's support of the auto industry among his signature domestic achievements, arguing the alternative would have led to more than a million job losses, the evaporation of iconic American companies, and the final nail in the coffin for Detroit's reeling economy.
Romney opposed the bailout, saying a structured bankruptcy could have achieved the same result without the massive cost to the U.S. government. Moreover, he has argued the Obama administration made too many concessions to auto unions as part of the bailout.
Now Obama is hoping Romney's opposition to the bailout sews up not only Michigan, but neighboring rust-belt states Ohio and Pennsylvania where many manufacturing jobs rise and fall on the health of the big three auto makers.
It's a point Obama will no doubt make to his supporters come Wednesday night as he is conveniently surrounded by some of the auto industry's most historic museum artifacts.
"Change is the decision to rescue the American auto industry from collapse," he told auto workers in Washington earlier this year. "You remember there were a lot of people who didn't believe in that."
Wednesday's fundraisers come on the heels of the Obama campaign's announcement that it raised $53 million last month, $8 million more than it took in February.
Also see:
Romney campaign 'bracketing' aims to 'step on president's message'
Dems, Republicans make their picks in election to replace Giffords
From CNN Politics
- Trump attorney appears before grand jury in Mar-a-Lago classified documents probe
- 10 Cards Charging 0% Interest Until 2024
- Judge says several Trump aides, including former chief of staff, must testify to Jan. 6 grand jury
- Harris hires Stephanie Young to be senior adviser
- Michele Bachmann Fast Facts
- Untitled
Well, this should be promising as the Repubs have turned their backs on the very industry that made Michigan a once super power in mfg.
How come we don't hear anything about how the "big brother is watchihng you legislation" that the state of Michigan passed that allows the Republican Governer to fire locally elected officials and install his own hand picked czar to run cities, towns, and school systems. The Governer has taken a number of cities and towns already. The czar stays indefinitely, too.
Michigan has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election for almost 20 years. We have two Democratic senators, and a moderate Republican governor, who replaced our two term Democratic governor.
Michigan is NOT a swing state, and will choose Obama in November.
Obama's going fundraising in union-heavy Detroit? Now there's some pretty low hanging fruit.
We could save the USPS system by looking at history...many times we have gone back to old ideas and reused them..
You know they use to use a vacuum tube system in New York to send and receive mail that was very cheap and easy to use, once the tubes were put in..they used capsules, at a time they looked at building subways for humans this way too....I think the New York mail system was used for 1897 to 1953...Maybe we could build tubes along our interstates to send mail between major mail sorting...
MI is no home to Rmoney. He is very unpopular for his ridiculous views on the auto bailout.
The Republican Party has become a dwindling group of far rightwing extremist whose views are not consistent with even moderate conservatives. They have pushed poor Mitt Romney into a corner; agreeing with everything and anything so long as it gets him closer to winning the nomination.
What people must understand about Mitt is that his former job, which he had more than 10 years ago, was not to create jobs, but to create profit for the investors. If a job happened to be created, it was a product of him deeming it necessary to increase investor profits. His was not to grow a company like a CEO would, dispite the profit margins at the moment.
Venture capitalist are like leaches and ticks, they grab a company and suck until it's dry. I repeat, they do not seek to create jobs. Jobs are an experimental biproduct of profits, which means nothing is more important than the profits. We do not need a president working with a multi-factet, complex machine like our government with that mentally.
In short, Mitt Romney would care more about having a house for him to live in than caring whether others have homes to live in. This fact is ihis history and he would say, its just a matter of business.
"I am so in," Michelle Obama said toward the end of her remarks. "I am going to be working so hard. We have an amazing story to tell. This president has brought us out of the dark and into the light."
------------------------------–
Another "this is the first time in my life I'm proud of my country," moment.
"Romney opposed the bailout, saying a structured bankruptcy could have achieved the same result without the massive cost to the U.S. government."
----------------–
Mitt Romney miakes far too many false and misleading statements. A structured bankruptcy requires funding, and there was no capital forthcoming from the private sector. Not even from Bain Capital.