What Obama's Fundraising Advantage Means

[jefferson_dem]

What Obama's Fundraising Advantage Means

Despite President Obama's latest poll numbers showing that his approval rating lags behind his disapproval rating by a roughly seven points, the numbers are not all bad for Obama. A more significant indicator, at this time, is that the President has raised more money than all of his opponents combined. Similarly, all of the Republican candidates lag far behind where both candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were at a similar time in 2007.

This means that, unless something substantial changes during the next few months, as the primary election approaches, the most visible candidate on television and in other advertising media as primaries and caucuses approach in Iowa, New Hampshire and other early states will not be Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry or some other Republican. Instead it will be Obama who has enough money now to match all of these candidates commercial for commercial and phone bank for phone bank. Obama will have the resources to defend in the face of a Republican primary campaign which, as things look now, will likely devolve into a contest to see who can portray President Obama in the worst light.

Obama's enormous fundraising edge sends other signals as well. Obama, unlike most of the Republican candidates, is a serious politician able to do the real work of politics. While this is also true of Romney, it is far less true of Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and some of the other Republican candidates. Romney, the leading fundraiser among Republican candidates for president, has not, as of the last filing, raised enough to run a competitive Senate race in a big state; most of the other Republican candidates have not raised enough for a competitive House campaign.

<SNIP>

This represents good news for Obama's reelection chances, but is also more than a little depressing for progressive Democrats who had hoped for more from this president. It is also an indicator that should the President get reelected, his second term will likely be as moderate, and even timid, as his first term has been. Accordingly, it is hard to imagine a second term Obama presidency, made possible in no small part from strong support from Wall Street, being any different from the current term with regards to the President's unwillingness to advocate for progressive economic reform or meaningful regulation of the finance sector.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lincoln-mitchell/what-obamas-fundraising-a_b_952165.html

[FrenchieCat]

1. Are they taking the KOCH Brothers and their octopus money into consideration?

Because my understanding is about 200 million dollars worth of ads is about to go up.......

as for this...."his second term will likely be as moderate, and even timid, as his first term has been."
sounds like the author has a crystal ball as his/her backup evidence and not much else. :shrug:

[ClassWarrior]

4. This might provide a clue to the author's second term prediction...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=765286&mesg_id=765286

NGU.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. What it really means is that..

money is more important in politics than it has been.

A billion fucking dollars to run for President-- and then argue about how to save money and balance the budget.

It just doesn't make any sense at all any more.

[Tarheel_Dem]

3. K&R (nt)

[tblue]

5. Citizens United, don't forget.

The whole campaign financing thing is just obscene.

I believe this is O's election to lose. It will still take a ground game though.