"Jittery donors want Obama to step it up"

Ben Smith:

They might have a war chest in the bank and a candidate who draws rock star crowds, but that doesn’t mean Barack Obama supporters aren’t getting the jitters as primary season rapidly approaches.

After all, despite the good press and enthusiasm surrounding Obama, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has stayed solidly ahead in both polls and conventional wisdom.

"There's a lot of amateurish thought that he should be in a much stronger position at this point than they think he is," said William Daley, the brother of the Chicago mayor and a prominent Obama supporter, of the chatter among Chicago donors to the Illinois senator’s campaign. "That's creating a little bit of backbiting beyond the normal stuff that happens around this time of the cycle."

Daley, who was Commerce secretary under Bill Clinton, said he waves off the concerns. "I say, 'Let’s get real, folks. Nine months ago, this guy was nowhere.'"

The jitters are born of high expectations in the spring that Obama might give Clinton an immediate run for the frontrunner's slot. Instead, while Obama has continued to raise money and generate excitement, he has plateaued in national polls and in Iowa polls.

When Obama's top fundraisers gathered for a national finance committee meeting in Iowa at the beginning of October, “The elephant in the room was, ‘What are we going to do, the polls, the polls, the polls,’” said one donor who was there, adding that Obama and his aides soothed the crowd with a focus on Iowa.

Bundlers complain that they “didn't raise all this money to run a one-state campaign,” said a Chicago Democrat close to the tight circle of Obama's top Chicago donors, who, like others who spoke to Politico, asked to speak on the condition of anonymity. “The frustration has been that they have not been able to move off the personal story and move off this groundswell of enthusiasm and the money to build a campaign in all the key states.”

Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, said he'd heard the complaints.

“I don't begrudge them their anxieties — they’re understandable,” he said. “It’s just important for the campaign to stay focused on what’s real.”

As for Obama himself, he said, “He's out campaigning. He knows what’s going on in Iowa in a way that a donor sitting somewhere can’t.”

But while jittery, wealthy contributors with free advice are a staple of most campaigns, Obama’s flock of small contributors has insulated him to some degree from the nerves of big donors — often business executives who are accustomed to being listened to.

Now, however, some of the same angst about Obama’s prospects is appearing on blogs that supporters have started on the candidate’s social networking site, My.BarackObama.com.

Under the heading “Worried — very worried,” one Obama blogger, Wade Schmidt of Nashville, Tenn., implored Oct. 3: “You have got to take [Hillary] on and not be scared. Take her to the mat and fight man. Call her out and have her ‘join the conversation.’ Your conversation. Time is of the essence Barrack [sic].”

“Is Hillary finally getting traction in Iowa after all the $$$ her campaign has poured into that state or is Barack losing support? What can we do to help the Obama campaign? Should I be worried? Is he going to pull a Dean?” asked a supporter from Lawrence, Kan., who writes under the name AnthonyKS, on Oct. 9.

Whether in response to donor complaints or not, the senator’s tone has shifted of late. He has confronted Clinton directly on her vote in favor of a belligerent resolution on Iran and even depicted her supporters as a handful of business-suited lobbyists — versus his cast of thousands — in an image on his website.

The combative new tack was a hit with Obama's online contributors — a series of e-mails that raised nearly $2 million were headed “Hillary’s money.” His more traditional donors also sound pleased.

“There’s been a feeling that he should be more combative, more aggressive in delineating the difference between an Obama and a Clinton administration, which they’re finally doing,” said a Chicago lawyer who raises money for Obama.

While Obama’s tone has shifted, his faith in his advisers, including his chief strategist Axelrod, apparently remains undimmed. One of Axelrod’s partners, David Plouffe, manages the campaign, and after two months of searching for a “rapid response” specialist, the campaign this week hired one of Axelrod’s partners for the job.

“I've always believed you’d rather be in first place than second place — that’s a given,” Daley said. “But he’s well positioned to pull off an upset in Iowa, and he’s well positioned to make a move in New Hampshire beyond what the polls are showing.”