Despite raising an unprecedented amount of money, Team Obama is burning through its cash "at an astonishing rate." The campaign is set to organize an unusual number "of high-dollar fundraisers in the coming weeks," according to reports.
The cash crunch has even led the president himself to open his wallet, giving the campaign a $5,000 infusion—a move Obama was not forced to make during the 2008 campaign.
While most incumbents have used their presidential clout to stockpile campaign funds, Team Obama has burned through its reserves, according to a Fox News report:
The Obama campaign is sitting on mountains of cash right now, but he is burning through it at an astonishing rate. Rather than the more traditional approach of an incumbent to run lean through the spring and summer before building out a larger apparatus, Obama started big and has gotten bigger. Even before he started nuking Romney with on-air character attacks, Obama was spending some $20 million in one month for staff, facilities, technology and other campaign infrastructure.
The president and his men knew this big, ugly and early approach would be hugely expensive. There were whispered brags that the campaign would raise $1 billion and plow through an underfunded Republican nominee whose coffers were sapped by a protracted primary fight. Small-dollar online contributions would pour in and marry up with fat checks from plutocratic Democrats.
Worried about the lack of cash, the Obama campaign has rushed to organize a series of upcoming fundraisers, the Hill reports:
The string of upcoming events reflects deep worry in Chicago about competing with the tidal wave of cash being raised by outside groups aimed at electing Mitt Romney.
The impetus for more and more big fundraisers just 98 days before the election is also in stark contrast with where Obama was in his matchup against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008, when he had a substantial financial advantage fueled by individual donations.
Obama has spent a considerable amount of time fundraising in recent days.