National: Candidates Look Overseas for Campaign Cash | NYTimes.com

In the hunt for campaign money, no distance is too far to travel, especially when the race between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is tight and likely to stay that way into the fall. The Democratic president and his Republican challenger have been aggressively courting Americans living abroad at fundraisers held far beyond U.S. shores. Such efforts serve the dual purpose of raising money to pay for what may be the most expensive election in U.S. history, and galvanizing a largely untapped group of eligible voters. The practice is legal and has been used for decades, said former Federal Election Commission Chairman David Mason. Obama has raised nearly $600,000 from Americans abroad while Romney has brought in about $325,000, according to campaign finance records analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics. Those figures don’t include sums raised overseas by both party committees or Romney’s take from a pair of fundraisers in London during his visit there last week. The sums are just a fraction of the more than $300 million Obama has raised overall and the $155 million raised by Romney, but every penny counts in a race that is neck and neck, as recent polls have shown.
One of Romney’s London fundraisers raised eyebrows because the guest list included executives from Barclays, which recently admitted that bank employees were involved in manipulating a key market index. U.S. and British agencies fined the bank nearly half a billion dollars and Bob Diamond, who resigned as CEO, pulled out of the fundraiser. He had already given Romney’s campaign the maximum individual donation of $2,500.
A separate well of potential donors awaited Romney in Israel, the second stop on the former Massachusetts governor’s three-country tour. But there too Romney attracted some unwanted attention when his campaign announced it would break with its own precedent by barring reporters from covering a fundraiser at a swanky Jerusalem hotel. A day later, his campaign reversed course and said reporters could cover Romney’s remarks to donors. An invitation for the Monday event put the minimum ticket price at $50,000 per couple — plus a copy of a U.S. passport. Romney advisers said the event was expected to raise more than $1 million.
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