Want to meet Obama or Romney? Here’s your chance

Have you been dreaming about hanging out up close and personal with Mitt Romney or President Obama? Well, today might be your lucky day.

Romney and Obama are offering donors to their campaigns a chance to spend time with them on the trail in exchange for a contribution to their respective 2012 efforts.

In Obama's case, donors who pony up $5 or more will be entered for a chance to have a "meal and a conversation" with the president.

The meetings are "a chance for me to talk one on one with people like you who are taking ownership of this campaign and connect with the work going on every day in neighborhoods across the country," the president explained an email sent out in his name to his campaign mailing list this afternoon. "These dinners also set our campaign apart. No matter what our opponents do over the next 14 months, dinners like these are how we will continue to put people at the heart of this campaign--and prove that we don't need checks from Washington lobbyists or special-interest PAC money to win an election."

Yet Obama's offer came after a similar email sent to supporters of Romney's campaign this morning, in which the former Massachusetts governor offers donors handing over $5 or more a chance to spend the day with him on the trail in New Hampshire.

"I know that speaking directly to voters is critical to sharing my vision for America. My hope is that you'll be able to attend an event near your home and hear about my plan to put our country back on the right track. But I also know that not everyone can make it to an event," Romney writes in an email to supporters. "This is why I am inviting one of my supporters to join me as my special guest on the campaign trail to discuss the issues facing our nation. I'll cover transportation--just make sure you have your questions ready."

Yet both campaigns note on their sites "no purchase, payment or contribution is necessary" to enter to win the contests—a legal caveat no doubt aimed at campaign finance rules that prohibit selling access to candidates.

There are two key reasons the campaigns are offering the contest. First, both Romney and Obama are looking to increase the number of small donors to their campaigns in the final weeks of the third-quarter fundraising in hopes of being able to tout grassroots support for their campaigns.

But the larger goal is for the campaigns to assemble an email database of supporters they can return to again and again. While campaigns continue to be largely financed by big donors, small donors represent a larger base for campaigns to mobilize for an election.

Obama and Romney are hardly the first candidates to use their own celebrity to raise cash. As The Ticket previously reported, former President Bill Clinton has repeatedly offered up a day with him in exchange for supporters helping to retire his wife Hillary's 2008 campaign debts.

But this isn't the only way Obama is trying to raise cash. The San Francisco Chronicle's Carla Marinucci reports that the Obama campaign has launched a donor outreach effort modeled after the online coupon site Groupon. The promotion will allow donors to buy a $5,000 pass that would offer them access to Obama fundraising events at a cheaper price than usual.

"The Speakers Series," as it is being billed, will feature top Obama surrogates, including senior administration and political officials, business supporters and celebrities.