When Republicans complain that President Obama is campaigning on the taxpayer's dime, most media reports simply say that is what the opposition says every four years. What a book finds is that Obama is actually doing it more than any other President since Richard Nixon, combined.
Reports the Daily Mail's Toby Harnden:
Barack Obama has already held more re-election fundraising events than every elected president since Richard Nixon combined, according to figures to be published in a new book.
Obama is also the only president in the past 35 years to visit every electoral battleground state in his first year of office.
The figures, contained a in a new book called The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign by Brendan J. Doherty, due to be published by University Press of Kansas in July, give statistical backing to the notion that Obama is more preoccupied with being re-elected than any other commander-in-chief of modern times.
Doherty, who has compiled statistics about presidential travel and fundraising going back to President Jimmy Carter in 1977, found that Obama had held 104 fundraisers by March 6th this year, compared to 94 held by Presidents Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Snr, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush combined.
…In their first years in office, Carter visited eight out of 18 battleground states and Reagan seven out of 17. Bush Snr, Clinton and Bush Jnr all visited around three-quarters of battleground states while Obama went to all 15 within his first 12 months. [Peak emphasis]
Obama has now been to Colorado four times in the last year alone, and every single time he has come he has charged the bill to the American taxpayer. Even when he has been here to hold massive fundraisers, including some that have cost nearly $40,000 per person, Obama has refused to have his campaign foot the bill.
This historically record breaking reliance on government funds, rather than campaign cash, to run for re-election is completely unacceptable.
The next time Obama rolls through town on the government dime in search of votes, keep an eye out on news reports. The media has loved to note many historic aspects of Obama's presidency. Will they report on this one?