Clinton Still Barely Rivals Obama Primary Fundraising
by psericks, Wed Oct 03, 2007 at 01:41:28 PM EDT
Sometimes it's important to take a moment to wonder at how wildly improbable Obama's rise has been.
In the span of a handful of years, a black state senator from the South Side of Chicago, a community organizer and constitutional law professor, has surged across the national scene --- partly due to the spectacular collapse of a series of better-funded, better-known, and better-connected opponents in an Illinois race that led to Obama being placed on the stage of the 2004 DNC Convention --- an event to which Obama could not even get tickets in 2000.
This baffling improbability, the sheer audacity of it all, doesn't lessen his appeal to his supporters --- it makes him that much more compelling.
I was tired of being embarrassed every time our national political leadership appeared on television; tired of a lack of vision and a sheer inability or unwillingness to articulate a compelling set of values that progressives share; sick and tired of a political leadership in Washington unable to stand up on the single most important foreign policy decision of our generation --- and unable even to apologize for the mistake.
It's that simple.
There is a group of political leaders in this country who bowed to political pressure and voted to launch a war in Iraq, and there is a group that took a stand.
Why should we reward a candidate like Hillary Clinton for her "experience" when she failed on the most critical decision of our lifetime? Why should we dutifully continue to promote leaders who fail us?
Let's talk about fundraising, since it's the story of the week. This year, as Kos pointed out, Obama has raised more than $75 million for the 2008 primary campaign, while Clinton has managed $62 million. That's the net result we all need to keep in mind, when we subtract all of Clinton's efforts to buttress her numbers with $15 million dollars in general election contributions from her biggest donors and her use of a loophole in campaign finance law to transfer funds from her Senate account.
Let's review:
Clinton spent last fall walking to Senate reelection, all the while amassing a massive war chest to ward off rivals for the Democratic presidential primary --- at a time when those funds ($10 million) could have well been used in close House and Senate races across the country and control of Congress was at stake.
Clinton had the gall to host a fundraising event this quarter whose crassness simply boggles the mind --- to which she outright sold access to the chairs of House Homeland Security subcommittees to Washington lobbyists for defense contractors like Halliburton.
Clinton has had the gall to defend her acceptance of lobbyist funds by arguing lobbyists defend real Americans --- such as "nurses" and "social workers." According to OpenSecrets.org, courtesy of TPM, in 2006 nurses and social workers spent a combined $759,238 lobbying Washington, while just the United States Chamber of Commerce spent $72,740,000 and the pharmaceutical and insurance lobby a combined $302,766,941.
This is not a difficult decision. It is not even an unclear decision. This is a decision about the future of our party and our country between two different directions.
There is a clear difference between Clinton raising over two thirds (70%) of her funds from donors of $2,300 or more, and Obama less than half. There is a clear difference between Obama raising 28% of his funds from donors under $200 and Clinton raising 9% --- a percentage, by the way, behind McCain, Romney, and Giuliani.
Obama's record in the US Senate on ethics reform here, his presidential campaign ethics proposals here.
Tags: Barack Obama, Fundraising, Hillary Clinton, President 2008 (all tags)
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