Dems Lead Money Game By Over $100 Million
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, MoneyBut it’s not just about money. The Dems wouldn’t be able to raise so much if they didn’t have a ton more people contributing than the Repubs.
One Democratic presidential candidate, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, says he has a quarter-million contributors, more than the top three Republican candidates combined — though Mr. Obama’s numbers may be inflated by the fact that his campaign counts as “donors” people who buy T-shirts or other campaign merchandise, something other campaigns don’t generally do.
Yes, combined. And something tells me that those who buy t-shirts are also kicking in some campaign cash too.
Here are some more numbers to put the “contributor” game in perspective…
Only half of Mr. Obama’s donors have hit the giving limit for the primaries; about a quarter have given him less than $200, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that analyzes campaign contributions.By contrast, about two-thirds of those contributing to the campaign of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani have already hit their maximum; just 8% have given less than $200.
Ouch.
And I’ve heard that a fair amount of Dems are holding out for Gore to run, so once it’s clear that he won’t (and trust me, he won’t), expect those million or so contributors to choose between Hill and Barack. Sorry John, I think you’re still running for VP.
The question remains how do the Repubs get more contributors? Well, they’re going have to find a yet untapped base of supporters and that means they’re going to have to get more moderate and try to convince Independents that they’re different than the Bush administration. But that’s unlikely because all of these candidates are betting that continuing Bush’s foreign policy will bring the voters in, and Independents are just about as done with that policy as Dems are. Another hazard for candidates…if they change positions at this point, well, that would be flip-flopping. And we all know how much Republicans hate that.
I wonder how many contributors Ron Paul has…
This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 and is filed under 2008 Election, Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:25 pm
I wonder sometimes what the framers of our nation would think about all of this money infecting the our political process. To my knowledge, John Adams and James Madison didn’t raise that eras equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars to run for the presidency of the United States.
A government for the people by the people? What’s the definition of “people” in this clause? Are the people multi-millionaire slash billionaires? How many of these “people” do you know? This isn’t a government for the people, this is a government for the moneyed by the moneyed and then if there happens to be a scrap left over, perhaps we will give it to the “middle classes” to keep them pacified.
I know as a presidential candidate you’ve got to have your $400 dollar haircut and your million dollar 30 minutes spot on day time television, but seriously! How much of the business communities money are you taking in to get elected, How much of your presidency is already pre-decided and paid off? Will you have any time for the American people after you’re done divvying-up the spoils to the lobbyist/constituencies a.k.a. (big businesses that bought you the best seat in the biggest show in the country.)
We are at the point in this country where you haven’t a chance to actually better this country, even if this is your chief desire, unless you are on the take. Raking in ridiculous amounts of money that could go to changing this country, instead it looks like a G’damn American Idol show down. What happen to standing up to corruption and greed? What happened to having the moral fortitude to do what is right? not what makes all the moneyed happy? America is made up of working class people, stop spending 80% of your time and resources on 1% of the population. For the people by the people? Who in the F! do you think you are kidding? “America, land of the greed” our national motto. What American that knows what America is supposed to be about can be proud of the utter corruption that takes in our government, like a pig that inhales his food?
July 24th, 2007 at 3:15 am
All Along the Watchtower: Notes from the Centrosphere.
I tend statistically to prefer reading centrist or moderate blogs. I’m surprised that more people don’t. Whereas blogs that lean right or left tend to be pretty predictable, centrist/moderate bloggers are full of surprises. Furthermore, they generall…