By MICHAEL LUO and MIKE McINTIRE
Pivoting toward the general election, Senator Barack Obamais turning again to his history-making fund-raising machine, which helped to anoint him as a contender against SenatorHillary Rodham Clinton and then became a potent weapon in their battle for the Democratic nomination.
To confront the Obama juggernaut, Senator John McCain, whose fund-raising has badly trailed that of his Democratic counterparts — and whose efforts suffered a blow this weekend when a key fund-raiser, Tom Loeffler, resigned because of a new campaign policy on conflicts of interest — is leaning on the Republican National Committee.
Mr. McCain is likely to depend upon the party, which finished April with an impressive $40 million in the bank and has significantly higher contribution limits, to an unprecedented degree to power his campaign, Republican officials said.
To that end, Republican officials said they were enlisting President Bush, a formidable fund-raiser who has raised more than $36 million this year for Republican candidates and committees, for three events on Mr. McCain’s behalf. They will appear together at a fund-raiser in Phoenix on May 27, and the next day the president will take part in a luncheon with Mitt Romney in Salt Lake City and then an exclusive dinner at Mr. Romney’s vacation home in Park City, Utah.
read more..
