Obama strikes populist tone at high-dollar fundraisers

President Obama said Tuesday night that he is convinced the nation is on the right track but the road to his reelection will be a "tough" one. 

The president said his campaign would be challenged by the "economic reality" but "not because of the ideas of the other side."

Speaking to an intimate crowd of donors who paid more than $35,000 per couple to attend the fundraiser, Obama acknowledged that many Americans have gone through "three years of really tough times."

"They don't experience the economy in some abstract way,” Obama said, speaking at the Maryland home of Stewart Bainum, the chairman of Choice Hotels International. “They experience it in terms of not being able to find a job, or their house being underwater, or their kids having to come back, even after they've gotten a college education, in tens of thousands of dollars in debt and still not being able to find a job.

"Given the difficulties that a lot of folks are still going through, its not surprising that they've feeling doubtful even if we're moving in the right direction," Obama said.

The president's remarks came on the night Mitt Romney inched closer to clinching the GOP nomination, crushing his opponents in the Florida primary.

But Obama, who brought in more than $3 million on Tuesday night, didn't mention his likely opponent by name. He simply said that "the other party has a fundamentally different vision about where to take this country.

"Their basic argument is that if we strip out regulations, if we disregard environmental concerns, if we take away protections for workers, if we lower taxes even further for the kind of folks who are in this room, that somehow growth and the American dream will be restored," Obama said. "I fundamentally disagree with that vision."

Earlier in the evening, appearing at the posh St. Regis hotel in Washington, Obama struck a populist chord at another high-dollar fundraiser.

Speaking to a crowd of 50 donors, Obama said he wanted to run for president in 2008 because of a "fundamental shift in the social compact."

“In addition to dealing with crises, our goal since before I came into office was ‘How do we restore that sense that any American, no matter where they’re from, no matter what they look like, that they’ve got a shot to succeed?’” Obama told the donors in a dimly lit hotel dining room.

Obama told donors on Tuesday that he's "absolutely convinced that we're on the right track. We just have to fight for it." 

The president wasn't the only member of his family attending a fundraiser on Tuesday night. First lady Michelle Obama spent the evening fundraising at a home in Beverly Hills, California. There, 135 supporters paid at least $5,000 to the Obama Victory Fund.

Vice President Joe Biden was also fundraising at two stops in Texas — one of which includes a ticket price of $35,800 per person.

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