With conservative heavyweights planning to spend lavishly to topple President Obama—the White House anticipates $500 million or more in outside spending—the biggest challenge facing Obama aides and the Democratic Party is amassing a campaign war chest large enough to fight back against the Koch brothers, the Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove’s Crossroads groups, and so on.

The Wall Street Journal today has an in-depth look at the Obama team’s early courting of donors in cities such as Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York. The “strategy briefings” by Obama aides, featuring the requisite PowerPoint presentation branded with the “Change the Matters” slogan, emphasizes the president’s “clear but narrowed support” in blue-collar, Midwestern states, but points out the stiff challenge facing Obama from deep-pocketed donors on the right. More from the WSJ: