Obama’s trying to play underdog, again. And he’s misleading everyone again.:

Tim –

I will be the first president in modern history to be outspent in his re-election campaign, if things continue as they have so far.

I’m not just talking about the super PACs and anonymous outside groups — I’m talking about the Romney campaign itself. Those outside groups just add even more to the underlying problem.

The Romney campaign raises more than we do, and the math isn’t hard to understand: Through the primaries, we raised almost three-quarters of our money from donors giving less than $1,000, while Mitt Romney’s campaign raised more than three-quarters of its money from individuals giving $1,000 or more….

This is not true. First of all, Obama’s campaign has raised much more money than Romney’s, it has spent more money than Romney’s, and it has more cash on hand than Romney’s, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. But you can’t just count the campaigns. After all, when Obama hosts his $30,000-a-head fundraisers, he’s raising money for his campaign and the DNC — and the DNC is spending that money basically to re-elect Obama. On the national committees, Obama is beating Romney, too. So, although Obama claims “I’m talking about the Romney campaign itself. Those outside groups just add even more to the underlying problem. The Romney campaign raises more than we do,” that seems to rely on an interesting definition of the word “raises.” They mean, in a minority of months, Romney raises more than Obama. At most, Obama can claim he’ll be outspent by counting outside money. This may or may not end up being true. But if that’s his method of counting, then he’s also clearly not telling the truth in this email, because he claims “I will be the first president in modern history to be outspent in his re-election campaign….” But if you count outside money, Bush was outspent in 2004. So, either Obama’s including outside money, in which case he’s not the first. Or he’s not including outside money, in which case he’s not being outspent. Misleading on his fundraising is standard practice for this campaign, though. Here are some examples.

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