After the second month in a row of Mitt Romney and company raising more money than Obama and company, Barack Obama and his reelection team are claiming that Obama will be "be the first sitting President in modern history to be outspent in his reelection campaign."
President Obama made a desperate plea for cash while aboard Air Force One, telling donors in a conference call, “I hope you still believe in me,” even though he’s grown grayer.
Obama made the pitch to boost his campaign coffers on Friday while flying back to Washington from surveying the Colorado wildfires. The DailyBeast.com obtained an 18-minute recording of the President’s call.
“In 2008, everything was new and exciting about our campaign. And now I’m the incumbent President. I’ve got gray hair,” Obama told donors.
“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.
Immediately after, Team Obama reiterated that point in a fundraising email:
"We're getting outraised -- a first for a sitting president, if this continues," the email said. "We can win a race in which the other side spends more than we do. But not this much more."
The problem for Obama and pro-Obama supporters is that the numbers do not match his rhetoric. It has been shown that 98 percent of Team Obama's advertising has been negative and has outspent Romney by 2-to-1 in some cases.
But despite complaining about the prospect of being “outspent” in campaign fundraising emails, Obama has outraised Mitt Romney by nearly $100 million, or more than 40 percent. The president’s campaign has spent more than $50 million on advertising since April, and has run nearly twice the number of television spots than the Romney campaign.
That’s not all. The Democratic National Committee has outraised its Republican counterpart by more than $20 million, and outspent it by more than 50 percent. Obama-affiliated outside groups and Super PACs have outspent Republican groups.
A recent Bloomberg analysis found that more than 98 percent of Obama-affiliated advertising has had “some negative tone.”
Once again the numbers, the facts, do not match Obama's rhetoric.