Study: Obama's Small Donor Base Image A Myth

Los Angeles Times:

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.

Read the whole story: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[mathme]

Less than $200 is a siIIy cutoff point. Sure, I, as a student, couldn't afford to give over $200, but over the course of several months, I think a lot of people who make a bit more or who are a bit wiser with their money could have easily given, say, 25 a month for 8+ months. I'd like to get my hands on that data...

[Angelic11]

We won; It;s over and that's that.

[Tipotter]

The truth continues to come out! Obama is a myth folks, wake up! "Change" LOL

Try pragmatic politician that would say and do anything to get elected...Look what he's doing now, leaving the LEFT in the dust without blinking...

[PAposter]

I really feel sorry for you.

[kutkreata]

Drudge is calling you.

[Angelic11]

you mean sludge

[Tipotter]

Please tell me what is not true.

And I can't stand Drudge thank you very much!

Look at his cabinet, Clinton at State, James Jones NSA, third in line at the Fed for Treasury, Gates at Defense???

If that is change....2+2=5

[Angelic11]

O is the Change; He tells them his objective and they, the subordinate execute his policies. Has he named Clinton?, I think not...but "IF" he does...she'll change to the Obama policy.

Should he have recruited from the newly graduated college pool?

[buddhistMonkey]

((( "Try pragmatic politician that would say and do anything to get elected..." )))

Here's a quick quiz for you: what did Obama say or do to get elected that wasn't true?

ƃuıɥʇou :ɹǝʍsuɐ

[PAposter]

I did a bowling fundraiser, it raised just under $500, I consider that a small donation.

[momof3inGA]

From the article: "...reported throughout the campaign, only 26% of Obama's contributions through last August and only 24% through Oct. 15 came from people whose total donations added up to less than $200.

The key word there being "total."

I donated an average of $15.00 each time -- often lower, occasionally higher. My TOTAL was above $200 by the end of the campaign -- but I for DARN sure am one of MILLIONS that changed the face of American politics with my small donations.

Nice attempt at spin.

[PAposter]

I agree, many of our totals will include purchases of merchandise, but the actual monetary donations were $50 or less.

[littleblackcat]

Obama's small donor base is no myth. You can twist statistics and turn them to show anything you want the to show. If you are a repub, you's stand on your head naked in the middle of Broadway if it will show that Barack Obama isn't what the world thinks he is. What the sensible people think he is will get this nation thinking about how we can help ourselves get through this mess that has been left to us by 40 years of repub corruption.
That small donor base is what got out and voted for this man. It dropped 85 cents into the basket at local headquarters, bought a two-dollar button because a fifteen-dollar shirt was not in the budget, volunteered for voter registration and made sure people got a needed ride to the polls. There are many ways to be small donor, and Barack Obama found a way to tap them all. He made us remember that hope is not dead, neither is pride.

[tchristin]

What I know, is that I gave donations several times throughout the nearly 2 years it took Obama to win the Presidency and I have never given to any campaign before. I know many people who did the same thing. Who paid for this study?

[Angelic11]

...that's easy, Sean Hannity.

[PAposter]

There are people still looking to tarnish this historic campaign, but they will not succeed, because there are millions of us, and we know what we gave, and how hard we worked.

I have never heard of a candidates donations being scrutinized so closely. Unbelievable.

[Soundofthunder]

What was Obama's donor base compared to W's? No comparison. Obama had more donors, of ALL stripes, than W. And more donors that paid "large" donations in "small" increments.

First thing conservatives do is complain that you can say anything you want with statistics then they proceed to demonstrate by saying anything they want with statistics. This follows the same line of thinking as complaining about how terrible government is then, after getting elected, proving their précis by governing badly.

SOT

[HonestGeorge]

Spin, baby spin!

[SilviaMaria]

Here we are again. I donated over $400 over the course of 9 months. I wished I could have donated more. We all gave money every month, sometimes $10 or sometimes $50 or more, so if you add all the donors and the amounts they donated every month they would see that we "small donors" gave a lot more. The problem they have is that they have to match the donors and the amounts for every single month and this is a boring and useless job; this also would prove my point that there were new donors every month but also the "old" donors were donating as well.

I would just ask these people that if they do not have anything better to do, please volunteer your free time to animal shelters, senior communities, children' hospitals, etc.

[SShaw490]

The point of noting "small donors" is to say that Obama's campaign was funded by normal people, not fat cats. Normal people - like my wife and I - gave smaller donations multiple times, almost always less than $200 at a time. We gave somewhere around $1500 total, but in several donations. We're not fat cats that write a $4600 check with a big flourish and want to make sure the campaign knows who sent it and what issues we worry about the most.

We ARE small donors.

[Angelic11]

I worked hard for to give donations; I sold Obama buttons and raised $1,416 for the campaign; Small donor? probably not...but it sure as heck was grassroots!

[eden4barack08]

Funny that the LA Times would repeat a skewed study published in USA Today a couple of days ago.

[momof3inGA]

So true.

[rflctammt]

Nice try. I'll remember not to believe another thing you write, Mr. Malcolm.

From another one of the "large donors" who dontated time, energy, passion, and many small donations over the past year to help elect a new kind of leader. First time for both my spouse and I to do either. Best money we ever spent.

[PAposter]

I agree, and this is the first time I got involved as well. I had a blast!

[rbarry647]

I had never given to any political campaign ever in my life. I started out as a small donor but each time the GOP pulled more crap it gave me more incentive to donate more so in reality the GOP did that fundraising for Obama. In total I gave a little over 1,000 and don't consider myself a large donor.

I the end I really don't care how we did it, I am just happy we did!