No matter who they nominate

"Dear Arnaldo DeSouteiro:

According to our records, you are currently registered, voting and living in California's 30th Congressional District.

When Republicans start making $10,000 public bets on how much Mitt Romney hates his own record on health care, it can only mean one thing: The Iowa caucuses are days away.

As entertaining as it may be to watch, our campaign faces a major test soon, too, and it's not Iowa -- it's 2012 and the final fundraising deadline of this year. More than any other deadline to date, what we do between now and December 31st will determine what kind of campaign we can run when the race heats up early next year, whether we have an opponent yet or not.

We're not placing or taking any $10,000 bets -- but we are asking supporters to make a donation of whatever you can afford.

Chip in $3 or more today to send us into the new year in the strongest position possible.

If you only listened to cable news, you'd think the 2012 campaign just got under way.

But for the last eight months, our strategy has been to build support at the grassroots level, organizing neighborhood teams and recruiting volunteers. We've got 1 million grassroots donors and 1 million supporter conversations to prove it.

This early on, that kind of work is never going to get as much attention as a debate in the heat of a primary, but it's more important, and you don't have to be a political junkie to understand why.

When the nomination fight is over, we'll have an opponent who believes the payroll tax cut extension for middle-class families isn't worth asking millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share. He or she will insist that instead of investing in education and infrastructure to rebuild the economy, we should gut Medicare and Social Security to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. They will enjoy the backing of outside interest groups with hundreds of millions of dollars intent on attacking the President's record. And they'll say whatever it takes to get elected.

We don't know who will win Iowa or any of the other caucuses, and it's not up to us.

What is up to us is what kind of grassroots operation we'll have in place when it's time to really pick up the pace next year -- how fast our neighborhood teams can spring into action to knock on doors and register voters, how quickly we'll be able to get the truth out about the President when the attacks begin, and so on.

It's going to be a tough fight. I'd bet any one of these Republicans on this movement's commitment to get it done.

Donate $3 or more today to help build for 2012:
https://donate.barackobama.com/Before-2012

Thanks,

Jim Messina
Campaign Manager - Obama for America"