Obama’s Campaign Embodies Public Financing
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, Hillary, McCain, Money, Republicans
Fair warning, this is from an Obama campaign email, but I thought the difference in contribution amount is striking…
In February alone, more than 94% of our donors gave in amounts of $200 or less. Meanwhile, campaign finance reports show that donations of $200 or less make up just 13% of Senator McCain’s total campaign funds, and only 26% of Senator Clinton’s.
Obama raised over $55 million in February. That means $51.7 million donations were $200 and under. Folks, I don’t care what you think about the guy, those are historic numbers.
This is what we say we’ve been wanting for the longest time, that money doesn’t influence politicians. And while there are no sure signs that Obama won’t be swayed by big money, I can’t imagine that the $3.3 million given by the other 6% is going to result in much wink-wink nudge-nudge quid pro cronyism.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, Hillary, McCain, Money, Republicans. 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.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:51 am
I’m afraid you have made a factual error.
“Obama raised over $55 million in February. That means $51.7 million donations were $200 and under.”
He said 94% of his donors gave < $200. That _guarantees_ less than 94% of his CASH came from people who gave less than $200.
Assume the other 6% of donors only gave $300 each, it would come to more than $3.7M. And I guarantee you many of them gave more than $300.
Doesn’t mean Obama isn’t doing something historic. It means you are reading more into his statement than he actually said.
It also means he is (probably intentionally) misleading his readers by comparing his number of donors to other candidate’s total campaign funds. And you fell for it!
Not to mention comparing his February results to other candidates “total”.
In short, there are Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.
–
TTFN,
patrick
P.S. I’m still going to vote for him, but I expected more of his campaign.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Why would Obama even be swayed by big money when he has an open tap running with money 24 hrs a day. All he has to do is ask and it pours in.
This is the beauty of his small donors. They are willing to give him 10, 20, 50 bucks but, only to him since many have never donated to anyone else.