SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Mitt Romney privately raised millions of dollars from New York’s elite Sunday, as Democrats launched coordinated attacks against the likely Republican presidential nominee, intensifying calls for him to explain offshore bank accounts and release several years of tax returns.
The line of attack, dismissed by the Romney campaign as an “unfounded character assault,” follows new reports that raise questions about Romney’s personal wealth, which could exceed $250 million.
President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign is expected to push the strategy throughout the coming week, underscoring their desire to portray Romney as disconnected from the middle-class voters he needs to win the presidency.
“He’s the first and only candidate for the president of the United States with a Swiss bank account, with tax shelters, with tax avoidance schemes that involve so many foreign countries,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Durbin was one of several high-profile Democrats who spoke out on the Sunday morning news shows.
Republican donors driving Mercedes, Bentleys — and in one case a candy red 2013 Ferrari Spider — crowded into a series of closed-door Romney fundraisers in the Hamptons, New York’s exclusive string of waterfront communities on Long Island’s South Shore. Romney’s Hamptons swing follows a weeklong vacation at his lakeside vacation home in New Hampshire.
Romney’s day concluded at the Southampton estate of billionaire industrialist David Koch, where donors were asked to give $50,000 per person or $75,000 per couple. A fundraiser earlier in the day was expected to generate $3 million.
