Study's Claim on 'Myth' of Obama's Small Donor Base Challenged

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: Editor&Publisher

The Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) study asserting that Barack Obama actually raised most of his campaign money from "larger" not "small" donors has gained wide, approving, coverage in recent days, from, among others, USA Today, The New York Times and Los Angeles Times, and countless web sites. Almost inevitably such accounts have held a headline referring to the "myth" of Obama riding a wave of small donations to victory. The study's author himself uses it.

But the "myth" is actually in the spinning of the report, including by its author, Michael Malbin, a former speechwriter for Dick Cheney, when he was Pentagon chief, and a resident fellow at The American Enterprise Institute from 1977 to 1986.

As usual in these cases, it's not that the numbers are wrong, it's the analysis and how the interpretation is being played by the media. Because, buried in the report, are all the figures and arguments for showing that the CFI's "myth" is actually a myth.

Let us count the ways....

1. Did many in the media actually allege that most of Obama's total funding was coming from small donors -- or just that he was being helped along significantly by them and that the number of new and smaller donors was unprecedented?...

2. More importantly, what is a "small donor"?...

3. Many people started by giving less than $200 but then kept giving more, putting them in the mid- or high-level categories....

4. Even putting aside all this, the report relates, deep within, that Obama, in fact, received donations under $200 from a staggering 2.5 million people -- completely unprecedented....

5. Also buried in the report is that, guess what -- McCain likely topped Obama by at least $10 million in the really big funds put together by "bundlers."...

Read more: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003917724

[JerseygirlCT]

1. It would be interesting to know

how many gifts (not looking at donors, just actual gifts) were say, $249 and less?

what was the average donor's giving?

median donor's giving?

How many gifts at each level of giving?

How many donors total - and how does that compare to other campaigns?



I do think it quite possible that Obama collected many, many smaller gifts. And that many people gave a number of these smaller gifts - so that perhaps their totals accrued to more than $250 or more total, easily. Does that mean they cease to be a small donor?

Also, proportion matters - what percentage of the total is represented by those smaller gifts and what by larger gifts?

It is very easy to shift the numbers around to make them look like what you want.

[Attackthejugular]

2. But then, the same gifts should be calculated for Bush's campaign for comparision reason

The article compares Obama's numbers to Bush's in '04. If your gift calculation is undertaken, it would have to be used on all candidates for comparison reasons.

[JerseygirlCT]

4. Oh yes, absolutely

with nothing to compare the numbers to, you really don't have anything interesting to look at!

[FlaGranny]

17. I gave him $50 the first time,

then I signed up for $25 a month. That takes me and my social security check out of the small donor category. Who knew?

[JerseygirlCT]

21. Exactly -

I'm betting you have a lot of company.

And what does that say? If what we're measuring is reach and the number of "regular folks" who got involved, it's a very good thing. But easy enough to turn into the sort of stats that the OP is talking about...

Numbers can be made to tell a lot of stories!

[silverweb]

3. I'm glad to see this challenged.

Very glad.

[Frisbee]

5. Well I made $10-$20 donatons monthly...

which makes me a small donor by my calculation, and I don't think I was in any way unique. Actually, I expect I was pretty typical of the Obama donors.

[xchrom]

6. mwhahahahaha

some satisfaction indeed.

won't amount to much but i'll take what i can get.

[LiberalFighter]

7. Michael Malbin, a former speechwriter for Dick Cheney -- Nuf said

[NJCher]

8. credibility

This kind of stuff:

But the "myth" is actually in the spinning of the report, including by its author, Michael Malbin, a former speechwriter for Dick Cheney, when he was Pentagon chief, and a resident fellow at The American Enterprise Institute from 1977 to 1986.

gives Obama more and more credibility. Every time I read something like this, I have to ask why they are so threatened that they would spend the time and money figuring spin like this.

Why?

To me it says they are genuinely threatened by a candidate who has popular support. Creeps like Rove were able to put bush into place because enough people in the U.S. were indifferent or stupid about politics. An informed electorate with a candidate acting on their behalf is a huge threat to them and their way of doing business.



Cher

[bjobotts]

9. Regardless of the bigger donors, the small donors were unprecedented

[bjobotts]

10. They fail to mention thatMcCain did NOT get near that number of small donors

[pnorman]

11. "Obama, in fact, received donations under $200 from a staggering 2.5 million people "

That was my gut-feeling, and what I was HOPING to see. Thanks for posting that! I've already Google-bookmarked the original source.

The disinformation campaign has already begun. Those Reptilican cork-suckers are FURIOUS that O'Bama's victory well surpasses that of St. Reagan, and are doing their level best to undermine it. But I'm now prepared for that.

pnorman
PS: I'm on a pretty TIGHT fixed income, but I gave --- in $50 increments, totaling $250.

[d_b]

12. I donated around $300

I suppose I'm a big donor.

[jbnow]

22. Yes, you are a "Big donor". So am I. I gave many small

donations of $10 to $44.08 but once I got over $200 I was a "big donor"

If you google your name and Obama you will pop up on a donation list, including your address. (The address sort of bugged me. Tell anyone who has a stalker not to get to over $200)

A countless number of small donors like us became big donors over the course of the campaign. Probably that means Obama owes us political favors. I'd like him to send someone to shovel for me and also expect to be named Queen of the Universe. After all, he owes me

[Acadia Blue]

23. I donated about 5 times in amounts of 100 so I guess I am a big

donor too.

[Skink]

13. More importantly there was no direct mail or vote caging.

the Republicans are at a loss as to how to gain votes now.

[CitizenPatriot]

14. so McCain Palin

weren't "out spent" as she keeps claiming?

I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT LIZARD LIAR IS COMING TO MY CITY

[Waiting For Everyman]

15. Well good, then the next time Obama runs he can defeat them again

with the same facts they won't admit. Reality sucks, that way, doesn't it - it won't just be accommodating and go away because they say so.

[ima_sinnic]

16. if I'd known I was contributing to re-creating the Clinton administration, I wouldn't have bothered

"change" is a great campaign slogan and nothing more.
I guess I should know by now, after being a voter for 45 years, that campaign slogans are meaningless no matter who is spouting them.

[Lochloosa]

19. Would you at least let him "become" President?

:banghead:

[NashVegas]

18. An Advanced Search in GD: P Yields

Some interesting reactions to claims that Obama's small-donor numbers were over-hyped.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=4806478

Otherwise, do your own searches on terms like "donors" and draw your own conclusions. The story may have been started in the media - driven by Obama press emails, no doubt - but it was the internet that made it mythical.

[4themind]

20. Yeah

the internet can harbor many myths, about , Obama, Hillary,McCain, or almost anything else. I think the thread that you posted is a good example of how a statement can be interpreted in differing ways & depending upon which way can lead to some demonstrably false conclusions(myths as it were), which can spread anyway but may or may not have been intended by the original source. But getting back to the O.P. it does seem that a part of this "disagreement" may be based on the assignment of numerical terms to nebulous words ("small", "many", "large" etc.). In these cases, relative comparisons between Obama's campaign & others can informative in drawing direct conclusions.

[LynnTheDem]

24. Gee, ya mean the American people are being duped yet again by the

librul media??!

I am so shocked, I tell ya.

[Warren Stupidity]

25. Big donor here. Regular Fat Cat I Am.

It was the number of individual donors, millions of them, not some artificial (and ludicrously small) threshold that chops those donors into large and small, that was different.