Obama Loses One Fundraising Advantage
| Fri Jul. 18, 2008 9:16 AM PDT
We've covered the fundraising beat a little bit recently. Here's a new piece of news: Obama may be shifting to a more conventional top-dollar fundraising model. Washington Post:
Sen. Barack Obama reversed a three-month fundraising slide by raising $52 million in June... Obama's campaign would not say how much of his total was raised from small donors who gave online, and official reports are not due to be filed until Sunday. But an examination of his campaign schedule — which has been packed with high-dollar fundraising events — would suggest that he relied less on Internet donors than he did in February, when he took in $55.4 million...
The shift has been noticed by top Obama fundraisers, who have been busily planning the kind of big-money events the candidate was able to bypass in the heat of the primary campaign. Several said in interviews that the campaign is no longer seeing the kind of online bonanza that occurred during Obama's long battle with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, when more than $1 million was flowing in each day.
One of the advantages Obama is seen as having over McCain is his freedom from fundraisers. The theory goes that because Obama raises so much cash online, he can spend his time holding rallies instead of high-end fundraisers, thus improving his chances of winning and decreasing his dependence on fat cats.
I've asked the Obama campaign if they are seeing a decrease in small donors. But the WaPo's analysis of Obama's schedule suggests that no matter what the numbers say, the "freedom from fundraisers" advantage has been lost.
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Comments
Submitted by Eric Ferguson (not verified) on Fri Jul. 18, 2008 11:44 AM PDT.
Funny, since Obama voted for the FISA bill, I'm having a tougher time getting my wallet out of my pocket. Sounds like I'm not the only one.
You're kidding, right? Obama now has 2 million donors, and the average donation for June was $68.
And for the FISA freaks - where were you when the 4th amendment died in all the ghettos of America with the Drug War? When racial profiling became so standard that we've got more people in the prison/jail/parole system than Russia in the hay-day of gulags?
And why on earth do you trust your government to obey a mere law and stop domestic spying? Do you honestly believe there was no domestic spying before 9-11? Not just months before - years and years before!
My priorities are not: FISA, jailing Bush/Cheney/Rove, ending all war. My priorities are keeping a roof over my head another month, helping my kids keep a roof over theirs and not becoming a burden to them, finding enough to eat, and where to get health care since Medicare - for those who want "Medicare for all" - is no longer accepted at my only non-HMO hospital for 20 miles.
I want my kids to have functional successful active unions, a pension, good health care, and some security after working so hard.
The rhetoric on the left is leaving people like me feeling like the left has left the planet, never mind the building.
