By Associated Press
Birmingham AL – Senator Barack Obama kicked off his Democratic presidential campaign in Alabama with appeals to both high-dollar donors and average voters Monday.
He made a string of fundraising stops where ticket prices ranged from the cost of a nice meal to the price of a used car.
For 25 dollars, hundreds of supporters had a chance to hear the Illinois freshman speak in a big hotel ballroom in downtown Birmingham.
Dozens of people held up cell phones to take pictures as Obama embraced N-B-A great and Alabama native Charles Barkley before his talk.
The ballroom, with a capacity of 35-hundred people, was three-quarters full, but the campaign did not immediately release how many people paid to get in.
For 23-hundred dollars, backers got to chat with Obama at smaller receptions in both Huntsville and Birmingham. Organizers also planned a pair of $1000-a-person fundraisers for the in-between crowd.
Obama last visited the state in March, when he and Clinton visited Selma for the anniversary of the ``Bloody Sunday'' civil rights march in 1965. It's estimated that Monday trip to Alabama brought Obama around $100,000 in campaign contributions, bringing his war chest total to around $50 million dollars.