Study's Claim on the 'Myth' of Obama's Small Donor Base Is Itself a 'Myth'
The Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) study disclosing that Barack Obama actually raised most of his campaign money from "larger" not "small" donors has gained wide, approving, coverage in recent days, from USA Today to the New York Times and Los Angeles Times and countless web sites, even making Huffington Post at least twice, including as a top link. Inevitably the headlines refer to the "myth" of Obama riding a wave of small donations to victory. That study's author himself uses it.
But the "myth" is actually in the spinning of the report, including by its author, Michael Malbin, a former speechwriter for Dick Cheney, when he was Pentagon chief, and a resident fellow at The American Enterprise Institute from 1977 to 1986.
As usual in these cases, it's not that the numbers are wrong, it's the analysis and how the interpretation is being played by the media. Because, buried in the report, are all the figures and arguments for showing that the CFI's "myth" is actually a myth.
Let us count the ways. There are many more that I could (and perhaps will, time permitting) add. I will also be quite willing to correct any of the numbers or my own analysis:
1. Did many in the media actually allege that most of Obama's total funding was coming from small donors -- or just that he was being helped along significantly by them and that the number of new and smaller donors was unprecedented? All of that, in fact, is true, based on the study. In fact, even accepting the CFI's tight definition of "small," these people donated more than half of what McCain was able to raise in total.
2. More importantly, what is a "small donor"? The report suggests that giving more than $200, in aggregate, takes you out of the "small" level. Between $200 and $1000 represents "mid-range" with over $1000 "large." There are two problems with this.
Why would $199 be small but, say, $299 not? It's an awfully arbitrary breakdown. Second, what is really "small"? With fat cats bundling millions, and many able to give up to $4600 individually, why not define "small" as, say, under $500 or under $800? This would change the numbers dramatically.
For example, much has been made of the percentage of "small money" (under $200) for Obama being only one point higher than that for Bush in 2004 (26% vs. 25%). But if you consider "small" a figure of $999 or less (in aggregate, often made up of repeated small donations), the Obama figure comes to 53%, while Bush stops at 38% and McCain at 41% -- quite a difference.
3. Many people started by giving less than $200 but then kept giving more, putting them in the mid- or high-level categories. It's valid to combine them, except that the study insists on comparing Obama's race and fundraising with past campaigns. And there's no comparison. None of the candidates in the past two cycles campaigned for almost two years, and were engaged in brutal primary fight that ended little more than two months before the party's convention. Kerry, Bush, and McCain all had relatively brief (or no) primary battles. So the Obama fundraising went on much, much, longer, by necessity.
Yet by CFI's definition, if you gave Obama $100 in 2007, then $100 when he kept battling Clinton in the spring of 2008, and then another $100 in September 2008, you were not a "small" donor.
4. Even putting aside all this, the report relates, deep within, that Obama, in fact, received donations under $200 from a staggering 2.5 million people -- completely unprecedented. A closer look at the actual figures show that Obama got over $115 million from these donors -- while the other three got only in the range of $40 to $50 million. The study also notes that Obama's 2.5 million donors equaled the combined number of such donors for all candidates in 2004. Yet the media is now being accused of pushing the "myth" that there was something extraordinary about Obama's relation to small donors. Even accepting the report's definition, Obama received twice as much "small funding" as did Hillary Clinton.
5. Also buried in the report is that, guess what -- McCain likely topped Obama by at least $10 million in the really big funds put together by "bundlers." The only place he held an advantage.
6. Finally, for now, also getting little attention in the press reports on the study is this line: "Forty-seven percent of Obama's money came from large donors compared to 56% for Kerry and 60% for both Bush and McCain." Yes, this is not night-and-day -- but still, gives lie to the spin that claims the report showed there was very little difference between the Obama funding and past campaigns.
Greg Mitchell is editor of Editor & Publisher. His latest book, on Iraq and the media, is "So Wrong for So Long." He has written two books for Random House on classic U.S. election campaigns, "The Campaign of the Century" and "Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady," and he has just completed a book on the 2008 campaign.
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MITCHELL LEAVES SMALL DONOR MYTH INTACT
(part two)
Mitchell argues as follows-
4. 'There was an increase in the number of small donors for Obama.'
-That isn't germane to the CFI contention that Obama's small donor base was a myth. If he had the same percent of small donors as Bush in 2004 (!), then his overall donor base was larger, but that only means that he had a better fund-raising machine and raised a bigger total.
5. ' McCain raised $10M more from bundlers.'
-How does that bolster the claim that Obama's incredible spending is attributable to small donors? (Hint: It doesn't.)
6. 'Obama increased the percentage of small donors by 9% over Kerry.'
-Sure, but he increased his overall fund-raising by more than 100% over Kerry!
Mitchell is trying to spin the CFI report.
DON'T LET HIM.
IT IS A MYTH THAT OBAMA'S FUND-RAISING SUCCESS WAS FUELED BY SMALL DONORS.
His fund-raising success was a tactical victory, not a moral one.
MITCHELL LEAVES SMALL DONOR MYTH INTACT
(part one)
Mitchell argues as follows-
1. 'No one said it was only small donors'
-Public financing reduces the importance of money in elections and increases the relative importance of our votes. What moral justification is there to increasing the impact of money by opting out of the system? Supposedly, vast increases in small donors ameliorated lessening the relative impact of your vote because smaller donations are more democratic. Without this justification, Obama just bested the Republicans at raising a huge war chest. That makes what he did effective but not more admirable than a Republican outspending a Democrat.
2. '$200 is an arbitrary figure.'
-Perhaps, but it is the figure that has been set by the FEC to determine when to lessen reporting requirements, and in that sense it is significant.
3. 'Many people who gave more than $200 gave it in increments.'
-So what? If you give it all at once or in installments, that doesn't affect the size of your donation.
(continued)
yes, thank you -- the $200 level is not at all arbitrary, but
was set by the FEC for "reporting" purposes of finance.
I have more to say about this, but,
do you know what H.O.P.E. stands for?
I don't, but I do know what it is!
I am so glad this is finally receiving some play in the public arena. Gods know that the msm can't be bothered to actually vette sources for their big reveals.
What is amazing is that millions of Americans donated to Obama's campaign. Over 22 million voted for him and at least half donated. Who do these republican slim machines think they are convincing - don't they realized that without us - liberal dems and indepdents they can't win. Don't they realize if we were giving the donations we know they are lying. Don't they know we comunicate with each other in various ways over the net. HOW STUPID ARE THEY
Ultimately it's as simple as "sour grapes."
Thank you for doing the dirty data analysis work to expose the lies as such.
I'm a single mom with 3 kids making about 25K/yr. I actually split up my stimulus check and donated to various dems... $250 total went to Obama. The campaign lasts for nearly 2 years; it's ridiculous to have such a low total (works out to about $10/mo). Under $200 total should be considered a "micro' donation ....
I had the same reservations. I'm not rich, but kept giving in $50 and $100 increments, as I could, until it added up to something like $1300. But that money was definitely a sacrifice, donated on a middle class income.. It wasn't like someone who's wealthy writing at $2300 check without blinking. And it certainly didn't get me into any face to face meetings. You obviously have to set some thresholds in talking about small and large donations, and there's no easy way to correlate them with income levels, but I know a lot of of people in my situation, and a lot more whose $25 to $50 at a time added up to $300 or $400. That's totally different than relying on major bundlers.
Paul Loeb
Author Soul of a Citizen
www.paulloeb.org
You seem to be ignoring an important ideological consideration. Obviously, it is important that large donors not have undue influence over the governance of our country- but giving favors to wealthy contributors is something that is investigated and policed (although not well enough) by law.
There is also the issue of whether or not you get to have one vote at the polls preceded by another de facto vote during the campaign that is as large as the donation you make. Clearly, the amount of money spent on a candidate influences the outcome. As long as that is the case, money can affect elections just as ballots do.
Unless you believe in 'as much democracy as you can afford', or that 'political contributions are a form of free expression'- then decreasing the amount of private money spent in campaigns is good for democracy. I'd rather have full public funding in campaigns, but the existing public financing efforts were a step in the right direction.
When there aren't any limits on the amount a candidate can spend, then the race becomes even more about money- and to the same extent somewhat less focused on just getting people's votes. It doesn't matter if you gave $50 or $100 at a time- the cumulative effect is the same. If Obama's proportion of small donors was the same as candidates who came before, then his exorbitant spending may have been good for his campaign, but it did a disservice to our democracy.
I donated $1125 to the Obama Campaign over the course of the campaign, which puts me in the "large" donor category--but this is the first time I've ever donated more than about $75 to a single candidate (or a party, for that matter). I consider myself a "small donor". Others I know, all of them ordinary joes (sorry, no plumbers) also gave significantly more to Obama than they had ever given in the past.
Me too. I donated $1100 in total but that was giving $100 donation on a monthly basis which was tough for me. I stopped buying lunch every day saving about $40 a week and that's how I managed to do it. I am a working stiff making less than $80,000 a year before taxes.
The whole problem with the way campaigns are financed is the feeling that money is equal to access. Now I seriously doubt that anyone giving $500 is going to gain access to any candidate with the possible exception of mayor or city councilman.
Now paying $2500 or more to go to a "fundraising" event certainly will gain you access and maybe even a picture with the candidate. Whether that gives one influence over the candidate is another question. It is the big time lobbyists who invest millions spread over several candidates that truly are the problem with the current system. The money given by PACS to the political parties is totally uncontrolled.
If we were to get rid of PACS and LOBBYISTS then we may truly have politicians who are more accountable to the people and the constitution rather than corporations.
Thanks for some well put-together analysis and for correcting some gross inaccuracies. It is a theft from the people of this country to diminish and not acknowledge the exceptional grass-roots efforts and direct monetary contributions of every-day Americans that helped secure Obama's historic victory. The greatest effect that a US president could ever hope to have is to be able to inspire Americans to better themselves and to better our country and to give a little more than is required. Obama has already proven that he is such a leader and I have faith that Americans will make the most of this opportunity.
Good point! Next he'll discover that Obama wasn't even "really" elected president, and by some miracle Sara Palin was!
I gave President Elect Obama several donations throughout his campaign. We made a choice to support him repeatedly because needed our continued financial support. Should I really be considered a "large" donor even though the total was just over $500? I own a small business that isn't even profitable nor paying me a salary, yet I'm considered a LARGE donor. Crazy!! That's the problem with reports, studies and statistics -- there's always a way to skew them to the researcher's favor. . . "Journalists" should be required to take statistics courses to actually interpret the results of a study -- I wonder how many of them even know what a standard deviation is? Happens all the time with medical studies as well, they wouldn't know how to interpret the results if their lives depended on it, and unfortunately most of the time, MILLIONS of lives depend on the interpretations and absurd assumptions they make just for headlines!
Got news for those who have believed that the small donor is a myth -- I am very much alive and ready to donate my $100.00 a month in 2011 to make sure that the Obama/Biden ticket has all the time needed to do what needs to be done. I know that there are millions more like me.
Why doesn't bloody MSM look at the author's name, google it, then take it with a grain of salt when he turns up as Cheney's speechwriter?
Because they are babies, being spoonfed pre-digested bullsh_t. Why go cook a nourishing meal for yourself, when other people give you this crap to eat?
Keep in mind...Palin was in the media...bet she dug real hard for facts. Sadly, there are too few really GREAT journalists left. But, to give them a little break..things are moving VERY fast now.....
I LOVE the food references; is somebody hungry today? It IS frustrating to realize that you have taken the time to inform yourself only to be forced into ridiculous arguments with those that didn't. It's worse to realize that some of these people that didn't take the time are PAID to take the time.
My wife and I maxed out for Obama for the primary and the general election campaigns. According to the study, that makes us "big" donors. But we did it entirely on our own; we did not contribute through a "bundler." I don't consider myself a fat cat; I was a wage slave throughout my career, but good fortune relatively late in life has enabled me to put my money where my mouth has always been politically. I have no special-interest ax to grind, and truth be told, I'll probably end up paying higher taxes once President Obama either repeals the Bush tax breaks on capital gains and dividends or lets them lapse. So how would the study classify me?
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