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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A big THANK YOU! from me 2 - I read the initial story & noticed those same seemingly contradictory facts buried w/in. Thanks for breaking it down - & I'm glad this is up today @ HuffPo & hope it will get some further play now...
thanks Greg, once again the media has failed us by not exposing this scam! I am one of those small donors who is now a big donor because over the course of primaries and campaign I gave more than $500, something that I have never done for a pres. campaign by the way! Sad to say though when I see Obama's treasury picks I wonder if I wasn't a little naive when I donated my hard earned money!
Thank you so much for doing the work on this Mr. Mitchell. I saw the headlines in several places and I just knew there was something going there but didn;t take the time to even read the pieces. Now, SUPRISE!, we find out that the author is connected to Cheney and the Little Enterprisers Institute.
I may have given $225 to Obama's campaign. I guess I'm now considered a big political donor.
These Republicans have burrowed themselves into the media so thoroughly it's hard to know what to trust anymore. Maybe that's the whole idea.
Permit me to introduce myself. I am retired. I have no lobbying agenda. I merely wanted to support the best possible candidate to lead our country in a very desperate time. I supported Barack Obama from the time he announced his candidacy. At each juncture, when it looked like his campaign might falter, I donated more. I gave the maximum allowed by law for an individual in the primary and the general election. Could I afford it ? Barely. Could I afford not to. Absolutely not. By the criteria used
to analyze Mr. Obama's donors I am a fat cat with an agenda. When I canvassed for Barack Obama I told people I supported him because he was the best candidate to deal with our very serious national economic problems and our very dangerous international problems. I still believe that and his performance so far as supported that belief.
First, Beholder, thanks for putting your money where your heart is.
Second, you were not alone. Throughout the campaign, I met many people who donated far more than you would ever expect people of modest means to donate. When people talk about large donors and donors who reach the maximum, we picture wealthy folks, but in this campaign, that was not the case. It's wonderful that so many working class and middle class people gave under $200, but even more amazing that so many, like yourself, gave more than $2,000. It's one thing to catagorize the donors by the size of their donation, another thing entirely to presuppose what those catagories represent.
Between my small donations during the Primary and my small donation during the General Election, I gave a total of $450.
So I guess by their definition I was a "Large Donor", does not matter that I make less than $25,000 per year.
Again, this is more evidence that the Republicans just don't get it.
Instead of understanding that they are out of touch, they claim that O must have won because he raised more money...an
Republicans couldn't have lost because they are represented by a bunch of racist, sexist, bigoted old white guys. And the VP choice of their candidate exemplified this and stirred hatred at her rallies. Or that their candidate made poor choices, on their advice, and looked old, erratic and out of touch. NOOOOO,..i
I really hope that their arrogance continues to keep them guessing because it will keep Dems in the White House and a majority in the Congress and Senate for years to come.
Why not simply compare the numbers of unique donors, are those numbers out there somewhere? The winner would most assuredly be PE Obama. That would undeniably attest to his grassroots funding and would combat any notion that small donors did not play a fundamental role in the PE's campaign.
I donated a little over $200 over a 10 month period in increments of $25, 50, 15, 10 dollars etc - so even though I'm clearly a small donor, I would fall into the mid level. But whatever - let them spin their story. They're just looking for another way to diminish his win, but it won't work. Obama, with the help of both small AND big donors, revolutionized the way all future elections will be handled.
Exactly. They can't admit they got their arses handed to them in every way.
I for one hope they continue to spin in every fashion they can; it will ensure they remain in the political desert for a long time.
I hope the keep wondering in that desert..40 years would be great...lo
The truth is, Wall Street favored Obama over McCain. Case closed.
Obama's a corporate puppet, no doubt, just look at his vote for the bailout and his new cabinet, a cast full of lobbyists and zionists, anti-labor operatives and millionaire investment bankers.
...and Kennedy was shot from a grassy knoll, the moon landing was done on a set, Elvis lives in a trailer park, yada yada yada
Pssst...al
Hey that's interesting. here's one thing I'd like to say though:
"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 $100 in September 2008, you were not a "small" donor."
Well.. what if you gave 100$ dollars 50 times? that does make you a pretty big donor right? So counting the total per donor is a valid way of doing these stats, BUT i agree with you that the number defining a small donor should be increased.
I would certainly like to know how they settled on 200$. I don't know exactly how but in theory this number can be determined mathematic
Anyway I know it's no myth, the man had popular support from smallfolks everywhere because they were afraid racism would prevail, i'm convinced about this.. but instead thanks to them it's obama and his amazing profile www.spinwh
I guess I am a typical "small" donor but I gave several times, which makes me a bigger donor. I gave early in the campaign, I gave when Biden was chosen, I gave to get some stuff (caps, sign, buttons, etc.) and I gave at the end in an attempt to tip the balance in Arizona. Each donation was, in my mind, a separate donation. Moreover, I've never (in more than 30 years as a voter) given to a Presidential campaign before. The new analysis of the myth behind the myth and the spin thereof fits my experience and that of my friends.
We gave in small increments because that's how we could afford (barely) to give.
We really responded to the appeals to give to encourage and match a new donor to give. We loved exchanging emails with them. That was a very powerful connection.
Plus, it got to the point where every time the Clintons did another stupid thing, we gave another small donation. Then it got to where every time the Republicans did another vile thing, we gave yet again, in a small donation. Blame it on the idiot Clintons and Republicans if that somehow made us into "big donors."
We didn't like feeling that, despite our trying to participate in the democratic process in every way we could (calling our members of Congress; registering voters; writing letters to the editor; canvassing in a swing state because ours is a noxious, immutable red), the only thing that really mattered was throwing more and more money at the election process. There's just something really wrong with that.
May the gods bless and protect the Obama family. We're now contributing a small amount to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Not because we can afford it: because we feel we would be idiots not to.
See, that's what I love about Obama - he brings out the good in people. I've done things like raised money for the AIDS walk before, but I had never donated to a cause until after I donated to Obama. Now I've donated to No to Prop 8 and a few other causes.
BTW - here's a link to the Southern Poverty Law Center donation page if anyone is interested in donating: https://se
Thank you.
The Malbin report is clearly an attempt to rewrite history using tendentious statistics.
I am sure it will not be the last.
We can't let this happen.
This article by Greg Mitchell deserves to be featured much more prominently.
Bushies just love to lie by omission, by not telling the entire story and/or by how they chose to spin the facts. This article is "spot on". One of the most important books I ever read during my undergraduate days was "How to lie with statistics
Now, how do we get this article into USA Today and those other sources?
I gave $250 and it was a small donaltion so leave it to the Republicans to make mine a middle level donation.
One thing I have learned about Republicans over many years they would much rather not have any analysis related to their "seat of the pants" decision making! But if required they look at analysis as "How to Lie with Statistics!"
At last someone with common sense dared to tell the truth "FORCEFULLY" . Thank You Greg
Absolutely. Thanks for pushing back Greg. The moment I saw the study, I knew it was a Right Wing spin. Now I learn the Dick Cheney connection. These are the same rabid neocons that convinced us that Saddam Hussein was behind 911 and that Global Warming is a hoax. What a pathetic joke they really are!
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