Obama with 250K contributors?

[LastoftheMohicans]

I just heard on the radio this morning that Obama has around 250,000 individual contributors with an average contribution of $202. I am interested in what the median contributor amount is. An average of $202 may be skewed by many large donors.

But getting back to my main point; how the hell can he have so many contributors. I realize that he has gotten a thousand times the coverage of Ron Paul and that he is the new media created sensation. But 250K. The guy is a complete empty suit. He never talks specifics. He's not anti-war, just against "stupid" wars. (His words).

[Gee]

Usually mean averages are more likely to be skewed by large donors, not median ones. As to why people like him, I have no idea. A lot of people probably love the idea that a black guy is running for prez, though myself I couldn't care less what color he is. He IS charismatic, though. Charisma + not a republican neocon is enough for a lot of people.

[EvoPro]

charisma?? the dude always talks in spurts of short phrases. I think the way he speaks is very annoying and artificial.
bill clinton had charisma, this guys does not. Ron Paul is very well spoken and more charismatic as well.

[mport1]

Lots of uninformed people who don't understand economics, the Constitution, or liberty.

[EvoPro]

I really don't understand the draw to obama sin laden...

[Buzz]

Lots of uninformed people who don't understand economics, the Constitution, or liberty.

Right. He gets a lot of publicity and lots of people think he's "cool," so it's not too surprising that he'd get a quarter-million contributers.

[LastoftheMohicans]

Usually mean averages are more likely to be skewed by large donors, not median ones.

I thought that's what I said. I would like to see the median donor amount.

[DjLoTi]

I know of some people that donated to him before they knew about Ron Paul.

[beermotor]

I know of some people that donated to him before they knew about Ron Paul.


Yeah, I made a comment on Fitnessfortheoccasion's blog about Obama, and then he researched and did an entire post about him. Obama sucks, basically. People who dig will figure that out. The shiny exterior is getting him points now, but ultimately, he is just another big-state, fuck the people kind of guy. Which is sad. A black Gandhi he definitely not.

[LibertyEagle]

beer, I love the picture. Clint... he's the man!

[IRO-bot]

charisma?? the dude always talks in spurts of short phrases. I think the way he speaks is very annoying and artificial.
bill clinton had charisma, this guys does not. Ron Paul is very well spoken and more charismatic as well.

YEAH! Bill Clinton could lie to your face and leave you feeling good about it. The man was mad good at slithering his way through things.

[belian78]

i went to a friends house this weekend that i hadnt seen in over a year. now, these people arent who you'd consider "politically active" in any sense of the word. (they are my local music crowd, local musicians and such) they jumped all over me because they heard i had gotten really into politics in the last year, and they all wanted to talk about Obama. Through speaking to them i found that they really didnt have any concrete reasons for liking Obama other than he's 1. a democrat, and they've never even considered republicans and 2. he seems like the best of the democrates.

as you can imagine, i had a long but enjoyable night discussing Ron with them all. some had heard his name, but knew nothing about him. by the end of the night everyone was saying "i'm gonna have to check him out". which i wholeheartedly agreed with and encouraged. I even had about an hour discussion with my buddy about socialized healthcare. it's scary, people only look at the fact of "well i dont have any coverage now, at least i'd have some". i'm sure that if we werent both "tipsy" the conversation wouldnt have taken an hour, but in the end i made him see that either he can accept the fact of his money being taken and spent on others that do nothing to support themselves, and at the same time getting sub-par treatment. OR he could support a candidate that knew exactly what the healthcare industry needed to make healthcare affordable for everyone. he's still supporting universal healthcare, admittedly only cause he doesnt know anything about any alternative, but he's gonna really check into Ron.

gives me hope, hearing that people you'd least expected to care about politics are getting involved this election cycle. and with just a little discussion, all the sudden Ron has potentiall 20-30 more supporters. :D

all of them local musicians as well, which means they talk to ALOT of younger and older voters in my area.

[EvoPro]

good work belian! Most people who support socialized health care don't understand the consequences. Or socialized anything for that matter.

[pennycat]

Seems to me that I saw a story about Obama's claim of 'no pac/special interest money'. It was back in the 1st qtr and I thought it was in the New York Times. It's point was that when the Obama org. was calling wealthy donors they were told 'I'd like to contribute but I'm a registered lobbiest.' They were then told, "No we can't take it from you. But we'd accept it from your wife.' And I've heard as well that campaign finance reform hasn't stoppped special interest money; its just driven it further underground.

2. I just don't believe there is a ground swell of people giving small donations to Obama. At least not enough to give the kind of astronimical numbers that are coming the Democrats way. In all my driving around Orlando I've seen 2 bumper stickers for Obama. 1 for Hillary. 0 for Edwards. Granted, I've only seen one Paul sticker. Something isn't adding up here.

[Roxi]

he probably gets his support from a bunch of people who are obsessed with the show "24" the president on there is black (and a really good president) so they probably think obama will be like the TV prez:p

[Roxi]

gives me hope, hearing that people you'd least expected to care about politics are getting involved this election cycle. and with just a little discussion, all the sudden Ron has potentiall 20-30 more supporters.


Tell them to check out Bands4RonPaul on myspace

[IRO-bot]

I love that quote Roxic27. HAHAHA makes me laugh everytime. Ahhh, good stuff.

[Roxi]

thanks...i love the implication that george w. has gonnaherpasyphilaids

ha ha

[acstichter]

http://www.fec.gov/DisclosureSearch/mapApp.do?drillLevel=US&stateName=&cand_id=P80003338

Contributions to Obama before Q2

$200 and Under $5,773,310
$200.01 - $499 $1,093,467
$500 - $999 $1,385,568
$1000 - $1999 $3,281,662
$2000 and Over $14,172,048

[amdajo]

If you want to know how some of these candidates appear to get so many individuals donations I can tell you at least one way- My friend works for a large law firm, and whenever the firm wants to support a particular candidate (usually a Democrat for that particular business) they persuade employees to give a donation which they then reimburse them for, or pay them in advance for.

They persuade the employees by telling them that this particular candidate will be best for the firm, and thus best for them (the employees) to keep their jobs.

Don't think this kind of thing doesn't go on at all kinds of businesses!

[kalami]

I'm not the most politically apt, but I can provide reasons for backing up candidates other than saying "he's so fresh," "I like what he stands for," and "He brings people together."

[tsoldrin]

As to why Obama has the popularity, it should be obvious... the guy is a political weather vein. He's got good people doing a lot of polling and focus group studies and he's saying exactly what he thinks people want to hear. This only works for someone like him - relatively new - because the people are notoriously fickle, they change their minds at the drop of a hat - so what's good for today can be bad for tomorrow. In the long run, by following public opinion a politician will end up being forced into flip flopping on many positions and that's usually the end of them. The only reason Obama is able to do this now is spin control, but the longer her stays in the worse he'll look for it.

[Gee]

If you want to know how some of these candidates appear to get so many individuals donations I can tell you at least one way- My friend works for a large law firm, and whenever the firm wants to support a particular candidate (usually a Democrat for that particular business) they persuade employees to give a donation which they then reimburse them for, or pay them in advance for.

They persuade the employees by telling them that this particular candidate will be best for the firm, and thus best for them (the employees) to keep their jobs.

Don't think this kind of thing doesn't go on at all kinds of businesses!
Yup ;) Obama got 3 mil from law firms:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/indus.asp?id=N00009638&cycle=2008
Individual business donations:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.asp?id=N00009638&cycle=2008

Its interesting that he got 160k from Excelon, a power company. I don't think they've given to other candidates.

[acstichter]

If you went to http://www.barackobama.com/ in the last month or longer, the forst page was a fundraising request with counters and goals for 250,000 contributions.

It is still prominent on his home page.

[acstichter]

Obamas site has a bunch of videos from dodors. It looks like they set up kiosks at fairs or busy places where people could contribute and speak in a video.

It makes it easy and fun.

[fluoridatedbrainsoup]

Well-orchestrated, and pretty well-working ploy to dupe dipshits into voting w/i their own group-think, as in "Wow, a white woman and a black man! Hope for America!"