Didn’t I get attacked for saying this earlier when I pointed out that the bulk of Obama’s contributions came from the financial services industry? Why yes, I believe I did!
Everybody knows how President-elect Barack Obama’s amazing campaign money machine was dominated by several million regular folks sending in hard-earned amounts under $200, a real sign of his broadbased grassroots support.
Except, it turns out, that’s not really true.
In fact, Obama’s base of small donors was almost exactly the same percent as George W. Bush’s in 2004 — Obama had 26% and the great Republican satan 25%. Obviously, this is unacceptable to current popular thinking.
But the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute just issued a detailed study of Obama’s donor base and its giving. And that’s what the Institute found, to its own surprise.
“The myth is that money from small donors dominated Barack Obama’s finances,” said CFI’s executive director Michael Malbin, admitting that his organization also was fooled. “The reality of Obama’s fundraising was impressive, but the reality does not match the myth.”
UPDATE: Greg Mitchell points out the problems with this report, including that the source is a Republican speechwriter. But the point I wanted to make is still valid - namely, that Obama is not a pristine candidate who rode in on a wave of public support without owing anything to corporate interests:
Also buried in the report is that, guess what — McCain likely topped Obama by at least $10 million in the really big funds put together by “bundlers.” The only place he held an advantage.
[...] Finally, for now, also getting little attention in the press reports on the study is this line: “Forty-seven percent of Obama’s money came from large donors compared to 56% for Kerry and 60% for both Bush and McCain.” Yes, this is not night-and-day — but still, gives lie to the spin that claims the report showed there was very little difference between the Obama funding and past campaigns.
That’s still a whole lot of semolians.
Again, I repeat what I’ve said before: If you want to know to whom a candidate is likely to be beholden, look at the source of the earliest campaign contributions. Obama’s startup funds are from the financial services industry.
And since Obama raised $639 million to John McCain’s $360 million, using percentages of cash raised to determine contributions from large corporate donors is misleading. Obama raised almost twice what McCain did.
But for some people, this argument isn’t really about whether Obama has taken serious amounts of cash from corporate interests. It’s about their own projection.
Where’s your Designated Obama Surrogate this evening? This post has been up for 13 minutes, and he hasn’t berated you yet!
Contributing an aggregate TOTAL of over $199 over the course of a campaign of almost 2 years makes one a large donor?
Snce when?
The Campaign Finance Institute report was written by a former employee of the House Republican Conference and former speech writer for Dick Cheney. This doesn’t mean it can’t be true, but should raise the hair on the back of your neck enough to make you at least look into it more.
The report does contain some interesting information, but also is full of spin and innuendo. The conclusions and major findings could have said almost exactly the opposite.
I personally know of over a dozen Obama donors who gave donations of from $5 to $25 many times, weeks or months apart, which then added up to $200+ in total. (This is without counting the many blog posts I saw where people said they were also contributing in this matter). The artificial definition of these folks as “large donors” is weak at best.
For another look at the numbers and ways to interpret see:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/study-that-hits-myth-of-o_b_147135.html
I don’t know if I’m the “surrogate” that JJ mentioned but I wouldn’t care if all of Barack’s money was donated by only one person.
Barack Obama won. Hillary Clinton lost. John Edwards lost. Huckabee lost. Romney lost. McCain lost. All the others lost as well.
It may be “Politics as Usual” but at least for the first time in 28 years there won’t be a Bush or a Clinton in the White House. That’s all that matters to me.
P.S. Where’s the analysis of donations to Hillary Clinton seeing how your blog is becoming so “fair and balanced” that you’re quoting articles from a former Laura Bush press secretary?
UPDATE: Yes, we all read and heard for the last two years, over and over again, from multiple sources, Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Communist, and every other political party under the sun that Barack “Obama is not a pristine candidate who rode in on a wave of public support without owing anything to corporate interests.” Anyone with the attention span of a gnat wouldn’t have missed hearing about his corporate donations.
If Hillary Clinton had won the election would we be hearing now about how “non-pristine” she really was/is?
Instead of comparing apples (Obama) to kumquats (McCain) I’d like to know more about Clinton’s donor base.
We heard about how non-pristine Clinton was through the whole fucking campaign.
I didn’t read the past argument that seems to be part of this, so I may be talking out of my a$$ here, but what the heck has Clinton to do with this post? How is Clinton’s donor base a refutation of Obama’s donor base?
I also have a few answers for you on that astrology post, Randy and merciless, I left a message for you on that thread as well.
Because if it weren’t for Obama, we would be suffering the HORROR of Clinton. The eternal and undying HORROR of Clinton and her bitchy castrating ego-driven AMBITION. Geez, why do we send you memos if you don’t read them?
Signed,
Somebody who was nice and calm a little while ago, not reading politics for a change.
Oh, dear, how horrible a situation we democrats would be in if we had a democratic woman as President. It truly is a horror to contemplate because, you know, the only true democrats are Obama democrats.
WTF is that, 8k? I’m sorry, but you have problems.
Yeah, I do. But not necessarily there.
And which candidate who could have won in 2008 America would NOT have had a percentage of corporate cash? Which one? And does it not mean anything that Obama had less than not only Bush, but Kerry as well?
We finally have a Democratic President and Congress. Hopefully something will get done about real campaign finance reform. I am in no way holding my breath, mind you — but it is far more possible now.
And as far as carloyn313 @10, the primaries were over a long, long time ago. Go find another straw man.
Hey, I was for Edwards, but would much, much rather have Obama over Clinton just to have someone other than a Clinton or a Bush in the WHite House. We’re all Democrats.
Both the original report and the LA Times post are the handiwork of Republicans. They strive to muddy the waters and generate controversy where there really is none. Neither quotes Obama’s campaign ever saying anything misleading about their fundraising.
What they did report is that approximately half of their donations came in amounts under $200. It was well known that a part of their success in fundraising came from (a) getting lots of small donors, and (b) convincing those small donors to make repeat donations.
What this new report shows is that they were successful at converting many small donors into medium donors. People who start out as small donors are qualitatively different from large donors in that virtually none of them expect or hope for personal favors in return. And furthermore they don’t work through bundlers. There’s really no controversy to be had, as much as people have been busy building straw-men myths they want to link to Obama.
That’s not to deny that Obama raised lots of money the old-fashioned way - which nobody of sense ever denied. However Obama did raise from small donors alone almost as much as he needed to run a successful presidential campaign. That’s a pretty consequential fact.
Wait a minute here, mercury. I wasn’t the one who brought up the primary wars by injecting Clinton into a thread about Obama. I voted for Obama and I haven’t slamed him at all online since he won the nomination. So don’t accuse me of something I haven’t done. I was commenting on Randy’s attitude that insists on bashing susie for daring to poke holes in a political myth. So why don’t you find another straw man instead of setting me up as yours?
I’m not bashing Susie for daring to poke holes in a political myth. I love reading Susie especially when she’s poking holes in any conventional wisdom. I question her decision to write about the LATimes blog article (a piece of shit actually) written by a former conservative press secretary (an even bigger piece of shit).
I’m not injecting Hillary into the mix as an opportunity to bash Hillary. I would’ve loved it if Hillary had won the nomination and gotten elected. The true comparison, if anyone wants to make the point of how much large-donor contributions were taken by Barack than the other candidates would be to compare Barack to the other Democratic candidates. That would include Hillary, by the way.
I’m tired of comparisons of Obama to Bush or McCain. Fuck them. If we’re going to compare campaigns, I’m more interested in comparing Barack to the other Democrats, at least, in the way he campaigned and raised money for his campaign, compared to how the other Democratic candidates did.
If that can be considered “Hillary bashing,” then trust me on this, this will be the last time I ever mention her name on this blog.
Contribution purity is less important than what the candidate does with it. We have yet to see Obama’s policies in action so what the result of his contributions’ purity or the lack thereof may be is yet unknown.
Hillary was as far as I know the only candidate who publicly called for the increased taxation of hedge fund managers — among the mostly highly compensated people on earth — and yet she received generous contributions from the very same people. So, again, contribution purity is not a barometer of anything meaningful.