OPINION

Crunching Numbers on Obama's Third Quarter 2012 Campaign Fundraising

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The Obama 2012 re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced Thursday that their fundraising haul was $70 million for the third quarter, down from the second quarter, but far ahead of the GOP field.

According to Fox News tallies - the campaign had 18 fundraisers this quarter, compared to about 31 for the second one.

Since his re-election announcement on April 4, he's had 55 total fundraisers.

The downturn in numbers was largely due to the debt fight, which consumed much of President Obama's schedule in July. Due to optics and non-stop meetings with Congressional leaders about raising the nation's debt ceiling, Obama mostly stayed in Washington during that time.

He picked up his fundraising schedule again starting with his 50th birthday bash in Chicago in August.

Since that time he's been criss-crossing the country, squeezing in fundraisers in places like Florida, Texas and Missouri.

Obama has held 18 fundraisers since the jobs bill was announced, and since his re-election was announced, averaged about a fundraiser every three and a half days.

More than 766,000 total donations came from 606,027 people -- 98 percent of the donations $250 or less, at an average amount of $56, according to the campaign.

In an email to supporters, Obama Campaign Manager Jim Messina, said of the quarter "You came through. Thank you."

The numbers include a joint effort from the DNC and the Obama campaign.

The Republican National Committee has been slamming the president all year for raising money, calling him the "campaigner-in-chief."

Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/10/13/crunching-numbers-obamas-third-quarter-2012-campaign-fundraising#ixzz1agd48uxR