Barrack Obama, the president of the United States left for a fundraising mission a few hours after he had arrived from Afghanistan. He was supposed to attend two fundraisers in which insiders say cost $40,000 a plate. There will be twenty five donors at each event, and it will be a closed door affair. The money collected in the fundraiser will be used to fund his re-election bid that is spear headed by the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Obama started the month of April with a kitty advantage that was put at 10-1 over the republican nominee Mitt Romney. The president at the time had $100 million, while Romney had $10 million.
Obama’s six hour visit to Afghanistan was to celebrate the death of Taliban leader Osama bin Laden, and to also sign a long term partnership agreement with the country’s president Hamid Karzai. During the visit, the president capitalized on the killing of bin Laden, to reassure the US public as well as forces in Afghanistan, that the war on terror had been well fought, and that, troops would be retuning home to their families soon.
He also outlined a strategy that would see the withdrawal of all troops in the country by 2014. In fact, the pull out will start as soon as governance and the security of Afghanistan is handed back to its leaders. The trip by the president, that was carried out in secret was also meant to boost the morale of ground forces still in the country that from time to time often face a hostile public, and suicide bombers.
Therefore, it was quite surprising that as soon as the president jetted in, back from Afghanistan, he left for a bout of fundraising with Washington bigwigs. In fact, his main challenger and the republican candidate Mitt Romney accused the president of politicizing the death of bin Laden, the master mind who was behind the 9/11 terror attacks on the twin towers, and leader of Al Qaida.
Apart from the fundraising that the president flew back to attend, he has also planned rallies in Virginia and Ohio, and they are meant to kick start his official campaign.
The timing of the trip to the country that is beleaguered by war, terror attacks, and unstable governance is quite telling, because it seems that the president simply wanted to make an appearance of supporting the war on terror, but in actual sense he wanted to milk bin Laden’s death anniversary for what it was worth. Therefore, he seems to be trying to use the anniversary of the terror kingpin’s death to boost his chances of making it back to the white house.
But this move may not work so well for him, because a large percentage of the public is not overly attentive to bin Laden’s death that took place a year ago. Most voters will be looking to hear what the president plans to do about the economy that has gone to the dogs, and the unemployment levels that seem to be increasing each passing day.
