Barack Obama's Campaign Donors Much Like George Bush's

I would advise all of you to go and read the original report carefully (if you are so interested), instead of relying on the 'summary' kindly provided by Mr. Impomeni. The report is free of spin and is available at:

http://www.cfinst.org/pr/prRelease.aspx?ReleaseID=216

Contrary to what is claimed by Mr. Impomeni, there seems to be nothing wrong with the '47%' figure quoted by the New York Times. Indeed, in the CFI report mentioned above (see link), you can read:

"Forty-seven percent of Obama's money came from large donors compared to 56% for Kerry and 60% for both Bush and McCain."

Upon further analysis, it turns out that Mr. Impomeni's quoted figure of 47% of funds coming from SMALL donors, as stated in the June 20, 2008 issue of the New York Times (hardly an up to date piece of information), was actually an understatement.

As shown in the most recent CFI report (see link and excerpt in my previous comments), 53% of President Obama's funds came from SMALL donors (since only 47% came from LARGE donors).

In the interest of highlighting Mr. Impomeni's intellectual 'honesty' I think that it is illuminating to juxtapose the title of his 'essay' with the relevant line of the CFI report (previously quoted in my first comments)

"Barack Obama's Campaign Donors Much Like George Bush's" (Mark Impomeni)

"Forty-seven percent of Obama's money came from large donors compared to 56% for Kerry and 60% for both Bush and McCain." (CFI report)

A more than 10% difference in the proportion of funds coming from LARGE donors (60% for Bush, 47% for Obama). Where I come from, that is somewhat significant difference.

HCR

Think "bundled" contributions. $150,000,000 raised from struggling Americans in September, alone? Give me a break!

some people just don't get it...small donations are underscored by the sheer number of people that stood in line for hours to vote...

why would they pinch from an already tight budget to donate to "change" and not stand in line?

facts are facts folks...the election is over...

argue over the percentages...would be nice if you guys used some of that phenomenal brain power helping fix our national problems instead of looking for a $201 donation that was not reported...geees

HCR, thanks for the link to the actual CFI analysis. Some additional observations:

(1) Because Obama raised so much more in *total* than anyone else this year or before, comparison of percentages may be apples to oranges. Presumably the total *amounts* in each of CFI's categories were larger than anyone else's. (Still, most of my following remarks are about the percentages, because those are the numbers we have.)

(2) To amplify the above, having 26% of his donors in the "small" category by total donations (so small that the campaign doesn't have to report their names, or "make every effort to verify" their addresses and employers) is still both an awful lot of people and an awful lot of money raised from such people.

(3) As HCR noted, Obama's percentage in CFI's "large" category (total donation $1000 or over) was significantly smaller than the other candidates named in the analysis. Of course they still amount to a very large percentage (80%) of the total *money*, but perhaps a truer measure of their influence would be an "inequality index" similar to the "Gini index" used to measure income inequality. (The idea being that, if there are equal numbers of people at equally spaced income levels, the rich don't have as high a percentage of the total income as if there are a small number of super-rich, etc.) I don't know if anyone has done that kind of analysis.

(4) Of CFI's categories, the one where Obama had a significantly higher percentage than the other candidates they cite was the "middle," total donations of $201 to $999. In particular, even though there were many cases of multiple "small" donations (under $200 each) by the same donor, almost all of those cases put the donor in the middle range rather than the "large" range.

(5) brntrewesl11:29AMDec 1st 2008 wrote:

>Think "bundled" contributions. $150,000,000 raised from
>struggling Americans in September, alone? Give me a break!

First of all, bundling still counts as multiple small donations, unless most of the money is the bundler's own. (Which would be illegal in the amounts one generally hears of for bundling.) Think of it as "outsourcing" part of the fundraising effort to the bundlers, but the actual money is still in small donations.

Anyway, there are 300 million people in the country, so $150 million isn't all that much. A little more realistically, the Obama campaign claims (and CFI finds "plausible") 3 million donors total. That would be $50 per, which is plausible for at least some "struggling Americans." Yet more realistically, let's say the figure of 80% of the total money from "large" donors held in September as it did overall. That would account for $120 million of the September figure, leaving $30 million for smaller donations. That's both (a) a very large amount of money as these things go, and (b) easily made up of small donations from even a few hundred thousand people.

Bottom line, both the total number of people who contributed to Obama, and the total amount contributed by "small" donors however defined, were unprecedented. However much one may decry Obama's "abandonment" of public financing (and of course a lot, though not all, of the people doing that were themselves opposed to public financing from the beginning), it's far from obvious that it entailed a perpetuation of the "role of monied interests."

Mark, don't you know by now that the 'chosen one' can do no wrong? Don't worry though. If you forget that well known 'fact', the libs will quickly remind you that everything is Bush's fault.

We have another President bought and paid for by the special interests groups. Why is everyone either so surprised or very, very defensive. It's the American way.

People only decry the role of "monied interests" when their candidate loses. If their candidate wins, the crickets can be heard. It's that way after all elections - otherwise there would have been a serious movement for campaign finance reform, not just the toothless McCain-Feingold.

dr jay writes

Bottom line, both the total number of people who contributed to Obama, and the total amount contributed by "small" donors however defined, were unprecedented. However much one may decry Obama's "abandonment" of public financing (and of course a lot, though not all, of the people doing that were themselves opposed to public financing from the beginning), it's far from obvious that it entailed a perpetuation of the "role of monied interests."
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Thank you for having had the patience to go through the numbers in greater detail than I have. My sole purpose was to correct what I felt was a misleading representation of the general findings summarized in the CFI report.

Special interests of all flavors routinely hedge their bets by contributing to both candidates - just like any good gambler does.

There's a lot of unreported cash that changes hands as well. If you were ever to attend a fundraiser geared towards big spenders, you'd see one or more "bagmen" working the crowd collecting unmarked envelopes.

I wouldn't put too much weight in any report that claims to represent the precise percentages of donation sources. It's way too loosey-goosey a system to measure accurately.

Section 1385 of the Posse Comitatus Act states, “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”

Under the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, signed by President Bush on October 17, 2006, the law was changed to state, “The President may employ the armed forces to restore public order in any State of the United States the President determines hinders the execution of laws or deprives people of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law or opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.”

However, these changes were repealed in their entirety by HR 4986: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, reverting back to the original state of the Insurrection Act of 1807. Despite this repeal, President Bush attached a signing statement saying that he did not feel bound by the repeal. It remains to be seen whether President elect Obama will reverse Bush’s signing statement.

bob writes:

I wouldn't put too much weight in any report that claims to represent the precise percentages of donation sources. It's way too loosey-goosey a system to measure accurately.
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Point well taken but, in the meantime, until better estimates are derived and published we'll have to do with them ......

hey...phony...please post such things using your own identity...

this is where i feel Dr Paul went wrong...he started many to begin thinking, but left many to their own devices when he chose to half ass out of the race...it has left some of you to become fools babbling about a constitution that you know little about and playing like children defending an election you lost way back in May...

phony...get your own identity

>bob 1:06PM Dec 1st 2008 wrote:

>There's a lot of unreported cash that changes hands as well.
>If you were ever to attend a fundraiser geared towards big
>spenders, you'd see one or more "bagmen" working the crowd
>collecting unmarked envelopes.

Bob, do you know this from personal experience? (Just curious.) Even if you've been at such a fundraiser, you don't know that those "unmarked envelopes" were "unreported" unless you were on the inside of the fundraising effort. If the envelopes in question contained checks, then of course "unmarked" is irrelevant. Even if they contained cash, the "bagmen" might have had some way of keeping track of which one came from whom.

In any case, there are other reasons for "unmarked envelopes" besides attempts to evade applicable laws. As it happens, I once attended a (nonpolitical) fundraiser "geared towards big spenders" (no idea why they invited me (;-)). I was surprised that the host made no mention whatsoever of money, and whatever collecting took place was extremely unobtrusive. But I gathered that this is standard practice at such events, not because of dishonesty (again, this was nonpolitical so there was no question of evading campaign finance laws) but apparently out of courtesy to rich people who the fundraisers presume don't like hearing direct requests for money, or writing their checks in person in view of other rich people (let alone interlopers like me). Still, you may be sure that the hosts knew exactly who gave every penny they raised at the event.

>I wouldn't put too much weight in any report that claims to
>represent the precise percentages of donation sources. It's
>way too loosey-goosey a system to measure accurately.

It may be "way too loosey-goosey a system" to have a significant effect on how much "big money" actually gets donated, but the reporting requirements are pretty strict. (And yes, people do go to jail for making unreported contributions.) And in the Internet age, the reports are right out there for everyone to see, and CFI and others to analyze.

i am the Truth and the light

dr jay1:36PMDec 1st 2008

Bob, do you know this from personal experience? (Just curious.)

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yes.

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Even if you've been at such a fundraiser, you don't know that those "unmarked envelopes" were "unreported" unless you were on the inside of the fundraising effort. If the envelopes in question contained checks, then of course "unmarked" is irrelevant. Even if they contained cash, the "bagmen" might have had some way of keeping track of which one came from whom.

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I'm going by what I was told when I asked the person with whom I attended the event. I'm not exactly a high roller either - just along for the ride. I've got no particular reason to doubt what he told me. He was very involved in the process at the time. This goes back a number of years, but not so far back that the regulations were significantly different than they are now. I've heard of other similar situations. The guys collecting the envelopes marked the envelopes themselves before pocketing them. I imagine they were noting who they came from.

This wasn't a big event. It was a small, invitation only event that I got into simply because the guy I was with was in charge of shuttling the national candidate's representative (in this case, his son) around the state.

Assuming for the moment my friend was either mistaken or lying for effect (I don't believe either is the case) I suppose it could have been reported.

***************

It may be "way too loosey-goosey a system" to have a significant effect on how much "big money" actually gets donated, but the reporting requirements are pretty strict. (And yes, people do go to jail for making unreported contributions.) And in the Internet age, the reports are right out there for everyone to see, and CFI and others to analyze.

*****************

I think the only real conclusion you can draw is that Obama brought in a lot more money (reported and/or otherwise) than McCain did, and he won the election. I think there's enough of a "slop" factor in the form of unreported stuff (minor, perhaps) and other methods of circumventing either regulatory or reporting requirements (someone mentioned "bundling") that an analysis of sources that tries to draw a conclusion about whether or not the candidate is one "of the people" or "of monied interests" is suspect at best.

What I want to know is how many of those small donations were made by Mickey Mouse?