Half of Obama Campaign Money Came from Small Contributions

by Jonathan Singer, Tue Nov 25, 2008 at 07:37:30 AM EST

The Campaign Finance Institute came out with a report yesterday on the funding of the presidential campaign, which for some reason got the story almost entirely backward. In a release, the group harps on data showing that as of the end of August just 26 percent of contributions to the Obama campaign came from those giving $200 or less in the aggregate, a number not too dissimilar from the 25 percent mark achieved by the Bush campaign in 2004. "It turns out that Barack Obama's donors may not have been quite as different as we had thought," the lede of the release reads.

Yet this totally and utterly misses the real story which was that Obama relied significantly more heavily on small contributions than other recent presidential campaigns. Fully 49 percent of contributions into the Obama campaign came in chunks of $200 or less, compared with 37 percent for the Kerry campaign in 2004, 32 percent for the McCain campaign in 2008, and 31 percent for the Bush campaign in 2004.

Why are these numbers, and not those upon which CFI focuses, so important? As Ben Smith notes, squeezing a little more than $200 from supporters in chunks of $25 or $50 through the web has much less of an even potentially corrupting effect than allowing $1,000 or $2,000 donors to meet with the candidate or top advisors. And in the end campaign finance reform is not about numbers or limiting the flow of money into campaigns but rather limiting the corrosive effect money can at times have on our politics.

Tags: campaign finance, Obama Cmpain (all tags)

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Yay, I'm a 'large donor!'

I gave maybe $225 over the course of the primary and general elections... I'm a large donor!

These arbitrary numbers are silly. The total number of donors is more important and demonstrate real people-powered politics.

by Dracomicron 2008-11-25 07:56AM | 0 recs

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Small Contributions

How is me giving $2000 in ten chunks of $200 less corrupting than giving in two chunks of $1000? It's not like the campaign doesn't know I gave $2000. I get invited to the same events. And my contributions get reported to the FEC either way.

It's a funny theory, maybe we should change BCRA to remove the caps and just require people and companies to contribute in "chunks of $200 or less", that'll really put a crimp in those lobbyists plans!

by souvarine 2008-11-25 08:01AM | 0 recs

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Doesn't work that way

It doesn't report "chunks," it reports full contributions. I donated about $225 or so in chunks of $25 to $50, but it still comes through as over $200 as far as reporting goes.

by Dracomicron 2008-11-25 08:39AM | 0 recs

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Re: Doesn't work that way

Once you get over $200 (might actually be $250 now) in cumulative contributions for a single election then each contribution must be itemized to the FEC. If you contribute multiple times within one reporting period then a campaign may bundle those multiple contributions from an individual into one line on the Schedule A. But my point remains, how you break up your contributions does not change the "corrupting" affect of the total amount.

by souvarine 2008-11-25 08:51AM | 0 recs

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Point taken

As I said before, the number of donations is more important than the amount.

He can't be equally beholden to all four million donors: Obama can afford to piss off his large donors and still be assured of making pretty good money for his re-election, but if small donations drop off significantly, however, that's going to look terrible for him.

by Dracomicron 2008-11-25 08:58AM | 0 recs

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Re: Point taken

Sure, Obama will be as beholden to the small donors who contributed 26% of what he raised as Bush was to the small donors who contributed 25% of what he raised in 2004. Which seems to be the point of the CFI report.

Personally I hope Obama is more beholden to the 67 million people who voted for him than to the 4 million who donated to his campaign. That would really differentiate him from Bush.

by souvarine 2008-11-25 09:13AM | 0 recs

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If you're going to go that far...

I hope that Obama is beholden to the 350 million Americans that comprise the great nation that he will be leading, whether they voted for him or not.

All that's beside the point. Good, clean leadership is the best response to these supposed indicators of corruption.

by Dracomicron 2008-11-25 09:36AM | 0 recs

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Re: Half of Obama Campaign

Going forward however we need to reign in these untracable Visa debit or gift guards. Think the Republicans won't figure out how to funnel million of untracable cash into campaign coffers moving forward?

by RichardFlatts 2008-11-25 08:30AM | 0 recs

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It's not about "small contributions"

There's no moral or ethical difference between a donor who contributes 1000 all at once and one who contributes it in chunks of 20.

I think there is a presumption that the small contributions come from working class donors rather than leisure class donors. If proven true, then I think that would have moral and ethical implications - but I don't see that it has been, at least not here.

We progressives are supposed to be concerned with facts, yes? If so, then I think the fact that Obamas under 200 contributors made up a similar share of his total as his predecessors should warrant some skepticism over how "revolutionary" his financing was - not defensive posts like this one, asserting that it simply Must Have Been So.

by Drew 2008-11-25 08:36AM | 0 recs

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I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way

I was under the impression that once you get over $200 in total donations, it's reported as such.

Or am I wrong?

by Dracomicron 2008-11-25 08:41AM | 0 recs

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You're right

If any donor contributes 200 or more, then the donation is reported to the FEC under the donors name. But I don't think that is the issue here.

The org is questioning whether Obamas donors are any different from past candidates like Kerry or Bush. The hype says yes, but the numbers say no. So the question is whether these are the right numbers to look at - does the mere fact that these contributions came in small chunks make some sort of meaningful difference.

All things being equal I don't see how they can be meaningful, by clearly others do.

by Drew 2008-11-25 10:01AM | 0 recs

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Clarification

I did all my donating in chunks of $25-$50, with a couple of purchases from the Obama store thrown in there.

I just looked myself up at one of the many search engines for this stuff ( http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neigh bors.php in this case), and it shows I gave $254 total.

Hopefully this will show that there's little significance to a claim that one can give $100 twenty times and not be caught by the bureaucrats.

by Dracomicron 2008-11-25 08:47AM | 0 recs