On the eve of President Barack Obama’s biggest foreign policy address to date, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee tapped one of the party’s foreign policy heavyweights to pen a fundraising appeal and blast Republicans for trying to block the president’s efforts abroad.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s email fundraising letter for the DSCC came on the final day of the committee’s November fundraising period.

“Our reputation abroad is finally beginning to heal,” Albright wrote on Monday. “Each day, President Obama is sending a message that America wants to work as a partner with friends around the world to build a future based on law, justice, human rights, and a commitment to peace. … We have a duty to show the world that the real America – the best America – is back.

But Albright – who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton and was the first female secretary of state – cautions that that work will not be easy in the face of a Republican party that is being pushed far to the right by “tea partiers and ultraconservatives.”

Republicans “have no interest in working with President Obama as he leads our nation in a way that reflects our highest values and our deepest hopes,” Albright wrote. “They are committed to making sure our president fails – and to regaining control of the U.S. Senate.”

Albright asked donors for their help to raise $98,765 by the end of the day “or risk losing Democratic control of the Senate in 2010.”

Last month the National Republican Senatorial Committee outraised the DSCC by about $300,000, but the Democratic committee had roughly twice as much cash in the bank as of Oct. 31.