Damned Lies: Study of Obama Donors Twisted

A new study being touted as an expose´ of the "myth" of Barack Obama's army of small donors is, in fact, a confirmation of it. The analysis of that study, however, is another story entirely. Greg Mitchell at HuffPo has his own rebuttal, but a quick glance at the data, by an objective 7th grader, gives lie to the report's headline:

REALITY CHECK: Obama Received About the Same Percentage from Small Donors in 2008 as Bush in 2004

Obama also raised 80% more from large donors than small, outstripping all rivals and predecessors

Drawing these conclusions from their data requires cooking skills to rival Emeril Lagasse.

Bam! Compare the percentage of small donors for Obama to those of George W Bush, and not the number of small donors. Obama raised almost twice as much as Bush, and so the disparity in the number of donors is huge. Also, Bush raised only 13% from mid-range donors, compared to Obama's 27%.

Bam! Get that 80% figure by leaving out more than a quarter of Obama's donors, whose total contributions were more than $200, but less than $1000.00. That would be like saying that 80% more of a class failed than got an A, disregarding those who got B's and C's.

The Campaign Finance Institute is a non-partisan organization, but Mitchell points out the author (Michael Malbin) of the study's conservative pedigree. While the full text of the study contains some of the disclaimers I mention here, Malbin is clearly choosing to highlight dishonest comparisons to support his thesis.

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The real story in these figures is that Barack Obama raised a truckload of money ($453 mil), and raised significantly less from large donors (47%) and large donations (33%) than McCain (59% and 53%) or Bush (60% and 57%).

This stuff will give you a headache. Don't even take my word for it. I suggest reading the report's data set, and not the analysis. Benjamin Disraeli said "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." In this case, it is not the numbers that lie. The author uses the mid-range category to scoop out repeat small donors, and then ignores the category in his comparisons.

Giving the author the benefit of the doubt, maybe he just wasn't convinced of the sizzle in a headline like "Obama Rocked it With Small Donors."

Tommy Christopher co-hosts "Unusable Signal" , on BlogTalkRadio Tues - Thur at 10pm, and Fri, & Sat at 11pm. Click here for the Unusable Signal homepage.

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