Obama is ahead by a nose on the delegate count, but he's turning the race on its head with his astonishing . . .Apr 26, 2008 04:30 AM
Tim Harper
Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON–In the midst of her victory lap in Philadelphia this week, Hillary Clinton pivoted quickly and became a presidential panhandler, a pantsuit and pumps version of the guy asking you for change at the subway exit.
Democrats, can you spare a dime?By the time she landed in Indiana, the next Democratic battleground, she had raised another $10 million.
An impressive haul, to be sure, but her plea for money merely highlighted another key area in which the New York senator is chasing Barack Obama, the Illinois senator and unchallenged King of Cash.
Obama's cash advantage may ultimately decide the race in the last weeks of this marathon.
Both Clinton and Obama are making history beyond the obvious fact that a woman and an African American are two steps from the U.S. presidency.
They have both broken new ground when it comes to bringing voters into their campaign, not just emotionally, but financially, with small donations fuelled by passion, the intensity of the race and, most importantly, the Internet.
Never has more money been raised by small donations from average Americans – and never has more money been thrown into a presidential campaign.
According to the Washington-based Campaign Finance Institute, all presidential candidates from both parties had raised $850 million by the end of March, almost double the $440 million raised at this point in the 2004 cycle, and about triple the $288 million raised at this point in the 2000 cycle.
"What we have seen is a real change in the way presidential politics is financed in this country," says Anthony Corrado, an expert on campaign financing at Maine's Colby College. "It has really empowered Democrats."
There has long been a stench to the millions of dollars poured into U.S. election campaigns, the aroma of special interests trying to buy candidates.
But the odour is really attached to congressional elections.
The overwhelming amount of money raised, and donor limits, swamp efforts of special interests in a presidential race.
Still, in a recent duel of attack ads in Pennsylvania, Obama and Clinton feuded over who was receiving "PAC money," shorthand for political action committees, a symbol of old Washington and K Street lobbyists.
They were really arguing over who was receiving 1 per cent of their donations from PACs (Clinton) and who was receiving zero (Obama).
"Those looking for those links are really looking at little trees rather than the forest," Corrado says.
The scorecard by the end of March shows Obama had raised $234.7 million, Clinton had raised $189.1 million and presumptive Republican nominee John McCain had raised $76.7 million.
Obama raised almost $100 million in February and March of this year alone, but what is remarkable is his number of donors, expected to hit 1.5 million by next month.
He has already raised $101 million from small donors, those who have contributed less than $200, tiny pledges he often cites on the campaign trail. The figure almost matches the total of small donations for all combined candidates in the 2004 campaign.
Donations are limited by law to $2,300 for the primary season and $2,300 for the general election.
PACs are limited to $5,000 in donations for each cycle.
"It's all very encouraging," says Massie Ritsch of the Center for Responsive Politics, "because campaign fundraising in the U.S. has historically been the domain of the wealthy elite."
But the number of Americans who will actually donate $200 remains a minuscule portion of the American population, he says.
It is the large donors who still get the face time with the candidate and can speak to him or her about specific issues.
Small donors who provide a name, address and credit card number can donate to Obama, but they can't tell him they like his health-care proposal, or whether they want him to change it, Ritsch says.
In Pennsylvania, Obama spent about $400,000 per day on television advertising, running 228 ads per day in the state capital of Harrisburg in the final days.
He spent a total of about $11 million, more than twice as much as Clinton, and 94 per cent of Democrats said they remembered seeing one ad, a phenomenal level of penetration in the PVR age.
While Clinton portrayed herself as the populist who had overcome a huge spending disadvantage, other analysts turned that around, suggesting Obama's massive spending cut what would have been a 20-point deficit to a 10-point defeat.
Obama is far ahead of Clinton in advertising in Indiana and North Carolina, the two states that vote May 6. If that spending can win him a victory in the Hoosier state and improve his margin in North Carolina, the race would be all but over.
He's already running ads in Oregon, which votes May 20.
"You can't buy TV time on credit," Corrado says.
"There is only so much that TV money can do at this point, especially when you have two such well-entrenched coalitions.
"But when you look down the road, Obama had already done three weeks of advertising in Indiana and he had already closed the gap there because he is the candidate who can get on the air early and make an impact early."
There is more than meets the eye in this funding gap, however.
Obama, from the outset, has been more adept at tapping small donors, with Clinton following the more traditional route of going for the bigger fish.
She also got more donors to give to their limit early as part of a failed strategy of clinching victory by Super Tuesday, Feb. 5. Since then, she has had to go back to donors, cap in hand, after every victory.
She is also carrying substantial debt. At the end of March, Obama was spending 75 cents of every dollar raised, while Clinton was spending $1.10 for every dollar raised.
She had to lend herself $5 million earlier in the campaign and she owes $4.5 million to the polling firm of Mark Penn, her former strategist, who resigned after it was revealed he was lobbying on behalf of a free trade deal with Colombia that Clinton opposed.
Including her own debt, she owes $15.3 million to creditors.While personal donations are limited, a number of questions have been raised about donations to the Bill Clinton Foundation, where there are no limits to donations.
It has raised more than $500 million since it was established by the former president, who will not reveal the donors – a right he has under law. Yet there have been suspicions that some donors may have used the former president's foundation to curry favour with the next president.
All is not as it seems with Obama, either.
Clinton maintains he has taken almost $2 million from lobbyists, corporations and PACs in the past 10 years and uses lobbyists in key campaign posts in some states.
http://www.thestar.com/News/USElection/article/418672
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