WASHINGTON — In a show of Democratic unity Thursday, Barack Obama told Hillary Rodham Clinton's top fundraisers that he and his wife, Michelle, had donated $4,600 to help retire her debt and some of Clinton's biggest boosters presented Obama's campaign with checks.
In his address to Clinton's supporters, Obama left no doubt that he would work to help her pay off the $10 million she owes her consultants and other vendors. One of Clinton's closest advisors, Terry McAuliffe, said he handed a $4,600 check to Obama's top money-raiser, Hyatt hotel heir Penny Pritzker. Pritzker and her husband gave $4,600 to Clinton.
"I know my supporters have extremely strong feelings, and I know Barack's do as well," the New York senator said at the Mayflower Hotel, one of the nation's premier power spots. "But we are a family, and we have an opportunity now to really demonstrate clearly we do know what's at stake, and we will do whatever it takes to win back this White House."
Obama, whom Clinton introduced as "my friend," said that he recognized that Clinton's backers were as passionate as his. "I do not expect that passion to be transferred. Sen. Clinton is unique, and your relationships with her are unique," he said.
But the Illinois senator added: "Sen. Clinton and I, at our core, agree deeply that this country needs to change. . . . I'm going to need Hillary by my side campaigning during his election, and I'm going to need all of you."
Clinton had called her top fundraisers to join her and Obama at the hotel, four blocks from the White House. About 200 Clinton Hillraisers -- the name she bestowed on donors who raised at least $100,000 for her candidacy -- showed up.
The point, as emcee McAuliffe described it: "Get all of our top people together and let him talk to them. Gets them fired up for the general election."
The Clinton-Obama show reconvenes today in Unity, N.H., a town where they each received 107 votes in the Granite State's primary in January.
It comes after many of Clinton's top donors helped fete Obama at the Music Center in Los Angeles this week, and after Obama urged his donors to help Clinton retire her debt. She plans to pay back the $10 million to vendors, but not the $12 million she lent her campaign.
Pritzker, Obama's national finance committee chairwoman, sought to underscore the debt-retirement effort in an e-mail this week to his most active fundraisers. It said that Obama "has asked each of us to collect some money to help Sen. Clinton to repay her debt."
