ACTION

One year ago today was the official launch of the Obama 2012 campaign.

On April 4th, 2011, President Obama sent you a message, copied below, to kick this thing off, and about five staffers and I came to work in an empty office in Chicago with nothing but a desire to build this campaign the right way, with you at the heart of it.

Today, I've got some news that I wanted you to hear first: More grassroots supporters pitched in during the first fundraising quarter of 2012 than in any before.

We're still crunching the numbers before our official report to the FEC later this month, but as of Saturday at midnight, more than 1.8 million people had stepped up to own a piece of this campaign.

Saturday in particular was the single biggest day of grassroots support yet -- more than 118,000 contributions in 24 hours alone leading up to the deadline. That's more than any single day in the history of this campaign.

At the very same time, we were out registering thousands of new voters, recruiting volunteers in every state, and reaching out to independent voters to talk about the President's accomplishments.

Thank you.

Not just for your support this quarter -- thank you for committing to what this campaign stands for, like the idea that we ought to rebuild an economy where hard work pays, responsibility is rewarded and everyone plays by the same rules.

Thank you for standing behind the President as he brings the war in Afghanistan to a responsible end. Thank you for supporting an energy policy for the 21st Century to boost our economy and save our planet, and for committing to protect women's health from those who would turn back the clock.

We've put something together to remind all of us about the spirit of how we got here. Check it out and share it with someone you know who should get involved.

Today's an important day in this race for another reason: Mitt Romney won three more primaries last night, and an increasing number of folks in the Republican Party establishment are calling for the GOP nominating process to come to an end. (No surprise there: It's been a disaster for their party and may well be producing a candidate that will be the most unpopular nominee in presidential campaign history.)

A number of states still haven't voted, and the race on their side won't be over officially for several weeks or even months. But the reality is that we're very close to the start of what's effectively a general election.

That means we've all got to refocus the way we've been thinking about this race right now -- and dig in and work even harder to help re-elect Barack Obama.

Every phone call you make, every conversation you have, every dollar you give, translates into an organization that will get voters to the polls on November 6th, 2012.

So if you've been waiting to step up your support, now's the time to jump in.

Take a look at what we've put together and share it with someone you know who needs to get involved:

http://my.barackobama.com/One-Year-Ago

Seven months to go.

Messina

Jim Messina
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

P.S. -- We've put together a video for today that I think you'll love -- it should get you pretty fired up.