President Obama on Monday began what is expected to be the most expensive presidential campaign in U.S. history with little fanfare, announcing his intention to seek a second term in 2012 in an email to supporters and a video targeting grass-roots organizers. “Today, we are filing papers to launch our 2012 campaign,” Obama said in the email. “We’re doing this now because the politics we believe in does not start with expensive TV ads or extravaganzas, but with you – with people organizing block-by-block, talking to neighbors, co-workers and friends.”
Obama’s virtual solicitation – which has already drummed up 19 million Facebook supporters – harkens back to his 2008 campaign, which made extensive use of the Internet in organizing and fundraising. Obama raised roughly $750 million in his first campaign. His fundraising goal this year is $1 billion.
“It worked well for him in 2008,” said campaign analyst Norm Ornstein. “I would be surprised … if he didn’t surpass his $1 billion goal.”
Obama made it a point to remain out of the public eye Monday and instead holed up in meetings with senior administration officials.
The president’s strategy is clear, and he’s employing his bully pulpit to hammer it home: Obama doesn’t want to appear preoccupied with campaigning while the unemployment rate remains high, the U.S. military is deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and conducting airstrikes in Libya and Congress battles over a budget deal.
“[Obama] is focused on the work that people elected him to do,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Monday, repeatedly deflecting campaign-related questions to the Democratic National Committee and to Obama’s soon-to-open campaign headquarters in Chicago.
“He has a job and he’s working full-time, waking up every morning with that foremost in his mind,” Carney said. “There is plenty of time well down the road for politics.”
Former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton each began their re-election campaigns with bus tours.
But a bus tour would soak up too much time and money for Obama, who has an economic recovery to nurture.
“He can’t go about this saying he’s a Washington outsider this time, no one is going to believe that,” said Laurie Moskowitz, a Democratic political consultant and expert on grass-roots campaigns. “He has a record now, and Republicans are going to point to it and say, ‘Where are your accomplishments?'”
During the upcoming campaign, Obama will tout his success in passing health care reform, drawing down troops in Iraq and redefining the U.S. role as a global leader, Carney said.
He also will try to convince Americans that the “change” they voted for in 2008 is worth waiting for even as Republicans argue that little has improved since Obama was elected.
“How can America win the future when we’re losing the present?” 2012 Republican hopeful Tim Pawlenty responded in a video release of his own Monday, flashing reminders of the housing crisis, $4-a-gallon gas and “going out of business” signs.
Obama will have to counter the sluggish recovery with a call for patience, making the argument that “change isn’t easy, change won’t come about as quickly as we want, and change takes time,” Moskowitz said. “He’s got a tough row to hoe.”
