Dream2be

WASHINGTON – Senator Barack Obama said Thursday that he had written a personal check of $2,300 to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, a goodwill gesture intended to nudge his top donors to help ease Mrs. Clinton’s debt and help the two Democrats move beyond their rivalry to focus on the fall campaign.

“I wrote my check to the Hillary for President committee,” said Mr. Obama, who was greeted with booming applause from some of Mrs. Clinton’s top supporters. Michelle Obama also contributed $2,300.

In a ballroom at the Mayflower hotel here, Mrs. Clinton introduced Mr. Obama to about 300 of her leading contributors, most of whom raised at least $100,000 for her campaign. It was the first time the senators shared a stage since she suspended her candidacy and endorsed him nearly three weeks ago.

The invitation-only gathering came on the eve of a joint appearance, with Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton set to arrive on Friday afternoon in the small town of Unity, N.H. to appear before television cameras in a carefully-crafted rollout of their renewed friendship and newfound partnership. Mrs. Clinton vowed to help Mr. Obama defeat Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.

“Time is always a great healer,” Vernon Jordan, a longtime friend of the Clintons, said in an interview as he left the event, which he described as a cordial affair. “There’s only one issue: winning.”

Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton arrived separately and entered through a side door of the hotel, a few blocks from the White House, bypassing a half-dozen protestors positioned by the front of entrance who held signs urging Mr. Obama to consider Mrs. Clinton as his running mate and to help retire her campaign debt. His top political advisers were on hand, mingling and chatting with Mrs. Clinton’s contributors.

In her public remarks, Mrs. Clinton asked of nothing from her former rival and pledged her full support.

“I am asking you to do everything you can to help elect Barack Obama,” Mrs. Clinton told a group of nurses before arriving at the evening event. “I have debated him in more debates than I can remember and I have seen his passion and his determination and his grit and his grace. In his own life he has lived the American dream.”

Terry McAuliffe, the campaign chairman for Mrs. Clinton, said it was time to get her contributors “fired up for the general election.” As Mr. McAuliffe walked through the hotel’s stately lobby, he was greeted by several Clinton supporters who embraced him and spoke longingly about Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy.

“This is unity. Bringing together these folks is a good piece of that,” Mr. McAuliffe said. “It was a great race. She got 18 million votes and she realizes what was accomplished. No one likes to lose, but you know what? She’s moved on.”

source: nytimes.com