Senator Barack Obama asked his leading fund-raisers in a conference call today to lend a hand to retire the campaign debt of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

This week has been designated as the coming together for Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton. As a prelude to their first appearance on Thursday evening in Washington, Mr. Obama asked his donors to begin pitching in to whittle away at Mrs. Clinton’s debt.

A senior Democrat said tonight that Mr. Obama asked, but did not demand, that his leading contributors help pay off debt of more than $11 million for Mrs. Clinton. It will be done, bit by bit, at chunks of $2,300 or less.

Stay tuned for more Obama and Clinton mergings this week.