Barack Obama raises $7.8 million in San Francisco fundraisers
SAN FRANCISCO — Barack Obama raked $7.8 million Sunday at three separate fundraisers in San Francisco, telling a VIP dinner crowd — many of whom paid $28,500 to attend — that he would win the presidency in November but to expect a tough battle with Republicans in the meantime.
‘‘John McCain, all he wants to do is talk about me,’’ Obama told supporters. ‘‘They know they can’t win on the issues. So what they’ll do is they’ll try to scare people:’He’s risky. He’s risky. We’re not sure.’’’
Obama was introduced at the dinner by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called him ‘‘a leader God has blessed us with at this time.’’
In April, at another fundraiser in this prosperous, liberal city, Obama made his infamous remarks about bitter small town voters who ‘‘cling’’ to guns and religion. His rival in the primaries, Hillary Rodham Clinton, immediately seized on the comments as evidence that Obama was an elitist with little regard for middle-class values.
Obama avoided any such characterizations this time but did say many voters are angry and confused.
‘‘The fact of the matter is, at a certain point, when government has not been serving the people for this long, people get cynical. They tune out,’’ he said. ‘‘And they start saying to themselves, a plague on both your houses. They are willing to consume negative information more frequently than positive information, for good reason. They’ve seen how promises haven’t been kept.’’
Obama has maintained a strong fundraising pace, bringing in $51 million in July to McCain’s $27 million.
But his campaign has also been spending at a rapid clip and the Illinois senator has turned down public funding for the general election campaign, requiring him to keep up a robust fundraising schedule for the fall.