It is really impressive when he raises money by having his surrogates call women F*cking Wh*res at fundraisers. What a class act this Obama campaign.

He's raised a truckload from small donors, and another truckload from big donors. This is a familiar theme. He's won in big states, small states, red states, blue states, states in the west, states in the east, states in the north, states in the south.

And, he pays his bills.

Seems like the gist here is that rich people like Obama just as much as poor people. Also, it's confusing and misleading to say "Donors who have given more than $200 account for about half of Obama's total haul, which stands at nearly $240 million." Half of the number of donors, or half of contributions?

For example, 46 people giving $100 each is going to be equal to one rich person giving the full $4,600. However, it would be disingenuous to say that those 46 people only represent "half" of the donors who gave a total of $9,200.

The only number I need to look at is the number of donors. Well over a million. That's what's impressive.

Well, I'm one of those $2300 donors, but I'm not some big-time money person. I donated in smaller increments over time via the campaign website--I have never attended a fundraiser and I don't know any "bundlers." I've never donated this much, or even close to this much, to any other campaign in the decades since I reached voting age.

Why are you Obama supporters even wasting your time blogging? Shouldn't you be out on the street
calling women F*cking Wh*res and then cheering about how witty you are?

You mean to tell me after all this time and everything that I've heard, Obama isn't just bankrolled by Oprah?

And here I thought he was Oprah's sock puppet.

Well well.

Inasmuch as he's got enough money to run a solid campaign (and one of the best run I've ever seen,) I love knowing he is getting donations of large amounts of money so that he can keep campaigning and paying his bills.

Let's get one thing straight: Greg Sargent loves Hillary's big, fat ass. If there's any hope left for her, anyway to undercut Obama's candidacy, and dark story about Obama that could possibly turn this thing around, Greg will find it. Go, Greg, go!

What this does is show that Obama is raising funds just like everyone else and that his claims to doing so differently are just lies. Further, he is reneging on his agreement to use public financing in the general campaign. He is a wolf in sheeps clothing or, more directly a liar and a fraud.

Matthew
http://www.TheProblemWithObama.com

Fucking Whore! Fucking Whore! Fucking Whore!

Ok, satisfied? Will you shut up now?

That's been beaten thoroughly to death and beyond.

The tax breaks and the subsidies in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that you mention give breaks to companies that promote the use of alternative fuels. But any breaks that occur are essentially wiped out by an extension of taxes on large oil corporations

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/397/

To much extrapolation!!!

79 bundlers x 200,000 = 15,8 million or 6.6% of the total amount raised. Not really a lot of influence compared to the 93,4% of other contributions.

The bundlers as well as me the campaign and anyone else for that matter has led to the 27,000 contributions of the max $2,300.

The WP piece ends this paragraph with the total contributions over $200 being nearly half his total 240 million raised. The implication is this is all from the impact of the bundlers... hardly a reasonable extrapolation in my mind.

Nice to see the Washington Post catching up with a nine-month old Bloomberg story.
Obama Faces `Glass-Houses' Criticism Over Campaign Fund Raising

June 7 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama emphasizes in a new appeal for donations that ``our movement is changing the way campaigns are funded.'' Not that much, it seems.
Data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington research group, show that in the first three months of 2007, the Illinois senator drew from many of the same contributors as other White House hopefuls: employees of law firms; investment bankers; Hollywood celebrities.
While Obama doesn't accept money from registered federal lobbyists, five of his 10 biggest sources of funds are groups of employees at law firms that lobby in Washington. He also received $54,650 from 40 people registered to lobby the Illinois state government, according to the Illinois secretary of state's office and the Federal Election Commission.
``His profile of donors isn't that much different from other candidates,'' said Democratic consultant Peter Fenn, who isn't aligned with any presidential candidate. ``If you're the agent of change and you're doing stuff in a similar vein as everybody else, you're vulnerable to the glass-houses argument.''
Employees at the U.S. subsidiary of Zurich-based UBS AG, Europe's largest bank by assets, contributed $162,200 to Obama in the first quarter, more than he received from any other group. Robert Wolf, chief executive officer of UBS Americas Inc., is an Obama fund raiser and hosted two events at company headquarters in New York City.

Giuliani Donors

UBS employees are also among the biggest sources of campaign funds for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, 63, a leading Republican presidential contender.
Employees of New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the world's largest securities firm by assets, are among his largest groups of donors; they are also among the biggest backers of his top Democratic rivals, New York Senator Hillary Clinton, 59, and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, 53. Republican candidate Mitt Romney, 60, lists Goldman Sachs employees as his biggest source of contributions.
UBS spokesman Doug Morris and Goldman Sachs spokesman Peter Rose said all donations are individual decisions.
The maximum that any individual can give to a presidential candidate during the primary election campaign is $2,300. Each can give another $2,300 for the general election.

Setting Him Apart

Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the candidate relies heavily on grassroots donors. His refusal to take money from registered federal lobbyists or political action committees sets him apart, she said.
It's ``not only different from the policy of several other candidates in the race, but it is also clear evidence of his own refusal to allow any group or outside party to influence his decision-making,'' she said.
Obama, 45, received donations from 104,000 people, including $6.9 million contributed online, in the first quarter of the year. Twenty-two percent of the $25.8 million he raised in the three months came in amounts of $200 or less, according a Center for Responsive Politics calculation based on FEC figures.
Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, raised 8 percent of her $26.1 million in amounts of $200 or less. She reported 60,000 donors and raised $4.2 million online. She took in $234,550 from registered lobbyists, more than any other presidential candidate.

Spielberg's Double Duty

Obama and Clinton list lawyers and securities-industry employees as their top two sources of campaign cash, and each has received more from entertainment industry figures than any other candidate. Director Steven Spielberg co-hosted fund raisers for both of them.
``The idea that you can raise the money needed to run for president and not go to the well-worn-out trough is ludicrous,'' said Democratic consultant Glenn Totten, who is neutral in the presidential race. ``How do you differentiate between lobbyists and firms that lobby?'' he asked, terming it ``a distinction without a difference.''
Among Obama's top donors were employees of the Chicago-based law firm of Sidley Austin LLP, who gave $105,750 in the first quarter. The firm was paid $4.5 million last year to represent such clients as Purchase, New York-based Mastercard Inc. and the Kenilworth, New Jersey-based pharmaceutical company Schering-Plough Corp.

Exelon Employees

Employees of Chicago-based Exelon Corp., the largest U.S. utility owner by market value, were Obama's second-biggest source of campaign donations, right behind UBS, contributing $159,800. Exelon, which has more than 3.7 million customers in Illinois, didn't respond to several requests for comment.
Obama introduced legislation last year to require operators of nuclear power plants, such as Exelon, to tell state and local officials about any leaks of radioactive substances. Current law requires notification only if there is a health or safety emergency. In introducing the measure, Obama cited Exelon's failure to tell officials about the leak of radioactive tritium into nearby groundwater.
Obama, a member of the Senate Health Committee, received $4,600 from Jay Grinney, president of Birmingham, Alabama-based HealthSouth Corp., which last year reached an agreement with the federal government to end the threat of prosecution over a $2.7 billion accounting fraud.
He also received $4,600 from former Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard, a managing director of the Washington-based Carlyle Group, a private equity fund that invests in health-care companies. Kennard is an Obama fund raiser.

"He uses Hillary's contributions from oil against her, yet when it comes to action, he voted in the interest of them for the 2005 Energy Act, giving away billions in tax breaks and subsidies to these companies making record profits--while Hillary voted against it. I don't care where the money comes from as long as they votes in the right manner."

Hold on a sec. Obama never "used Hillary's contributions from oil against her." He responded to repeated attacks by HRC (first in the form of an HRC campaign press release, then a TV advert) that he was "taking money from oil companies," which is a false accusation, albeit just subtly enough so to be sneaky. (Obama has received campaign donations in an amount *100k less than HRC* from *employees* of oil companies, and two of his 79 bundlers are oil services execs.) It is only after the SECOND attack on this front (the PA TV ad, which came out over a month after the initial HRC campaign statement) that he *responded* with, among other things, the point that HRC receives oil company employee donations as well, in fact more than he does.

Finally, as to the 2005 Energy Bill: Let's be clear here. The Energy Policy Act does provide some distressing hidden subsidies for fossil energy companies in the form of decreased geophysical cost assessments, ability to accelerate writeoffs for equipment expenditures, and tax breaks for so-called "clean coal" research. However, it also provides substantial incentives for alternative energy, including actual tax credits, accelerated depreciation schedules, and a mandate for increased renewable portfolio standards at the state level. So it's arguably a net positive for renewable/clean energy (as someone who works in the renewable energy industry, I happen to think it is).

OK, it's clear the spin in Greg's post is that Obama's contributors are, contrary to conventional wisdom, a bunch of fat cats, that over *half* of them (OMG!) gave more than $200! This is supposed to blunt the fact of Hillary's reliance on fewer, apparently wealthier, donors, a fact that is a little inconvenient when she is wanting to be perceived as the champion of the working-classes.

So, I want to know, what proportion of Hillary's own donor base surpassed the $200 threshold? Although Greg chose not to include the figure (perhaps since it does somewhat undermine his talking point), the Washington Post article does:

Donations of less than $200 account for nearly half of Obama's contributions, compared with a third of Clinton's and a quarter of Sen. John McCain's, according to the Campaign Finance Institute.

Curious about these figures - the implication being that they are cumulative for the primary campaign, but it doesn't actually say so - I paid a visit to the CFI website and found that the figures are actually just for January 2008. That seemed a bit dated, and sure enough there is a more recent (and pertinent; why did the WP use the January only one?) report available, for the primary season - Jan 1, 2007-Feb 29 cumulative.

And those figure are even more dramatic.

$200 or less contributions:
Obama 41%
Clinton 26%
McCain 13%

When you look at the maxed out donors, you see once again dramatic differences between the candidates.

$2300 contributions:
Obama 41%
Clinton 60%
McCain 70%

Note that these figures are Primary receipts only (don't include General Election funds) and the percentages are of the amount of funds raised, not the number of donors at each level.

Personally, I'm glad that Obama has billionaires who support him, even as he criticizes the way many of them do business. Believe it or not, there are some conscious billionaires out there. And Obama is a conscious candidate. So it's a good marriage.

And believe me, most of Hillary's money comes from Drug companies and lobbyists. So, in terms of who she serves, she's locked up.

But if Obama disagrees with one of his billionaire backers, he can always turn to the people to support him instead. That puts him in a position of power.

On another note though, I wish Obama would say something about the food riots in Haiti and other parts of the world. That is a dangerous trend peculating.

More like a John Solomon "no there there" slasher, if you ask me. "Ooohhh, look at who's giving money to Obama. He must be in their pocket."

Those 79 "big bundlers" were responsible for a whopping 15% of the money he's raised.

Setting the "big contributor" threshold $200.00 is facially idiotic and appears to have been arbitrarily picked based on the total pecentage of contributions it would allow the WaPo to call "big donors."

Counting someone who's donated ten bucks every month for ten months as a "big donor" is also idiotic at best and dishonest at worst.

It does change the picture, though, if Obama's success was being touted as coming from small donors, and the implication was it was mostly from small donors.

It does have something to do with his love of the constitution though.

What a coincidence - same here.

:)