Letters to the Editor
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One reason
The very fact that Terry McAuliffe is still involved in the clinton campaign is one good reason to not give her any money, nor my vote.
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"We won the fourth quarter and the third quarter"
Fine, but clinton is trending down and obama is trending up, put your spin in that.
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Who's giving? Huh?
Whose giving him these truckloads of cash? Huh? Huh? Who's buying his favors? Who's expecting what from the money they're giving. That's what everyone should be asking.
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Republican January numbers
Have the Republicans released their Jan numbers yet? 'cause so far it looks like the Democrats' January numbers have beaten the Republican's 4th quarter numbers. Once you take out Romney's self-donations Hillary beats him too.
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@ frederico
If the January money is like past money, Obama has many more small-donation givers than Clinton, who relies heavily on fewer richer donors.
Huh?? Huh??
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Frederico: The American people.
Who's giving Obama truckloads of cash? Ordinary Americans like you and me. From the $32 million January announcement: "Obama's one-month tally is the most ever reported for January of a presidential election year, Federal Election Commission reports show...Plouffe said the Obama campaign counted 170,000 new donors in the last month, bringing its total to 650,000."
$32,000,000 divided by 170,000 = a $188 average contribution, and that's not even counting people who gave money before January.
Obviously, some gave more and some gave less, but the sheer mathematics of it would suggest Obama's getting his money from regular folk.
(And, for what it's worth, I'm one of those new 170,000 -- I gave $200.)
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Who’s Giving? Mostly Small Donors
Obama (like Paul on the Republican side) is getting a lot of his money from small donors ($10-500 range). His donator lists are huge compared to Clinton’s who attracts a lot more establishment large dollar donations. Unlike Paul however, Obama’s donations are translating into votes.
This gives me a much more positive view of Obama’s campaign. The fact that 50 people making under $40k a year are willing to give him $100 each means a lot more than 5 rich people giving Clinton $1,000.
Of course Obama does have big donor’s backing him too. But his fundraising support is far broader than Clinton’s (and light years ahead of any Republican’s).
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frederico
well freddy,i gave him anouther $100,it's the 3rd time i've done that.that's where the cash is coming from,folks who are giving small amounts several times.it's from real people.....
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@Frederico
Whose giving him these truckloads of cash? Huh? Huh? Who's buying his favors? Who's expecting what from the money they're giving. That's what everyone should be asking.
I've donated about $220 to Obama's campaign in the past year. It qualifies as a truckload of cash only if it's a Tonka truck. And, while I'm sure Obama has his share of big donors, I think he's depending more on many hundreds of thousands of little donors like me. Obama's only behind Ron Paul in number of small donors contributing to his campaign, and maybe as the campaign continues, he'll outdo Paul, as well.
The Clintons banked on Wall Street and their top-down party connections, not realizing that their lobbying lions would be nibbled at by mice.
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"Obama's getting his money from regular folk"
That's why enthusiasm for this election will drop like a thud especially if the Clinton's manage to squeak by to the nomination thanks to some strange super delagate power play or games with the florida delegates. Even if his momentum came too late and the Clintons claim the nomination there will be little excitement for her.
Clinton vs McCain. What a depressing thought. After the rancor and psychodrama of Clinton I and the debacle of Bush II, I don't think very many people would get excited over Clinton vs McCain.
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Money Talks
This also goes back to when I said how a candidate conducts their campaign speaks volumes about the candidate themselves -- Obama was prescient on the efficacy of small donors and the Internet to get funding.
Where was Clinton on this? Odds are her handlers didn't think she'd get much green that way, and that they'd rely more on bigwigs with deep pockets, the old Democratic standbys, as well as Clintonian connections. Maybe it didn't even occur to them, maybe they didn't need that money at the time, figuring Queen Hillary would get crowned and we'd all have to put up with it -- but judging from the numbers, she was roundly outflanked by Obama on that score. So, Obama's that much cooler because he was ahead of the curve on the small donor wave, and could rely on his actual on-the-ground popularity to bring in more people and get out the votes, and bring in the dollars.
It puts the Clintonites in a weird place -- vituperatively supporting a not-popular, comparatively conservative candidate bankrolled by a few wealthy donors and adroit lobbyists, up against a popular, charismatic, slightly more-liberal candidate supported by many, many small, highly-motivated, everyday American voters.
Now, from my admittedly partisan perspective, the latter candidate appears both more genuinely democratic, and more Democratic, too -- this is what the Democratic Party needs, and bad. The lobbyists had their time of dominance, and all they did was erode the Democrats and weaken them as a party. But the "Obama Approach" (and Dean's 50-state strategy, which makes it work on the ground) is the key to ousting the GOP from power for generations. If Obama's able to win the nomination, it will be a revolution in so many ways.
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We all know, all that matters is money and polls
Who cares about issues?
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Big money and Small money
Frederico, and the people who answered, brought up a question I've had for some time about our lazy mainstream media (which in my younger days I worked for a few years). For months they have been reporting dollar totals of fundraising, but not how many people gave that money.
In other words, if Hillary Clinton got two $1 million donations, and Barrack Obama or John Ewards or anybody else had received 20,000 donations of $100 each, the totals were reported in the media as if the two candidates had the same amount of popular support.
In the day when political donations were reported on paper and laboriously typed into a newsroom computer by the lowest-ranking person around, I suppose that was just teh way it is. In the day when the data is available with a right-click and can be rehuffled and restacked by a variety of criteria, it's just lazy journalism.