October 2, 2007

Obama Rakes It In

Obama has taken the lead in the Democratic field for the number of campaign donors, acquiring 93,000 new ones and raking in $20 million this last quarter. Though Hilary has yet to release the amount of funds she's raised and she's the fore-runner of the Democratic candidates, Obama has out raised her. Some of the donations have been as little as $5, but that doesn't seem to matter when you've had 352,000 donors. Five dollar donations seem to suggest that Obama is reaching out to more "everyday people", not just your big business people looking out for themselves in the future. He has had large fundraisers just like the other presidential candidates including a "$3 million fundraiser with talk-show mogul Oprah Winfrey, an event with mega-investor Warren Buffet and a low-dollar match program where the campaign united small donors with people who matched the amount the smaller donor could give", according to an article by the Washington Times, but he does have the most donors, a sure sign of popularity.
I thought this cartoon was a perfect representation!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This article is somewhat misleading. While Obama may have a larger base of contributors, Clinton has both a larger amount of money and a 23% lead in the polls over Obama. The democratic race now appears hers to lose. While we all wish that politics could in fact be about the issues, it appears yet again as if people just inevitably jump on the most popular bandwagon. This race was Clinton's to lose from the very beginning, and barring any major fowl up by her campaign, it appears the race is now definitely on for second.

JillianEmery said...

I thought this blog made a good point, even if incorrect.. I still think it's more beneficial, especially for the candidates' campaign, to have more small donors, than a few "big money" donors. The more average Americans that are donating and showing their support will essentially help the candidates number of ballots in the end than having a few really wealthy and prominent donors, and therefore, voters. The American people can be very influential on each other, and if someone sees all the support that a candidate is getting, he/she might be more apt to learn about and possibly support that candidate.. especially more lower-class citizens. They might not be so compelled to support a candidate who only has really wealthy supporters as much as they would for the candidate who has the support of more average Americans.