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Can the not-billion-dollar man win?

Can the not-billion-dollar man win?

Early on, Team Obama was bragging about raising $1 billion.

When over the summer and fall fundraising did not seem to be all it should be, the confidence remained.

Now, not so much.  Via The Hill:

For some Obama supporters, the presidential campaign’s fundraising totals, released Monday, might have left something to be desired.

While Team Obama surpassed its $29 million fundraising haul in January, racking up more than $45 million in February, the campaign is lagging behind its February 2008 totals. Obama has also fallen behind George W. Bush’s fundraising pace in the 2004 election cycle, raising some worries from donors.

As before, Team Obama is highlighting small donors, but one has to wonder how many were drawn in by the $3 raffles for dinner with Obama, and how many of those small donors will shell out the kind of cash Obama needs:

Obama campaign officials and some high-profile Obama financiers expressed confidence Monday that they are where they need to be, highlighting that most of last month’s contributions came from small donors who gave the campaign $250 or less. Campaign officials say 105,000 donors gave for the first time.

Don’t get me wrong. Obama will have plenty of money. But $1 billion is looking more and more unlikely.

Obama always has created the false impression that small donors were his base, but in fact he relies heavily on big donors and bundlers.

Comparisons to Republican primary fundraising are meaningless. When there is a nominee, and the focus is on defeating Obama not each other, the spigots will open.

Obama always has been a complete phony when it comes to campaigns.   He complains about the role of money in politics but is a virtual vacuum cleaner when it comes to raising campaign cash, so much that he was the first president to opt out of federal funding.  It’s always been about the money for Obama, and now that the money isn’t coming as quickly as he wants, expect his fundraising efforts to reach a fevered pitch.

Being President comes second.

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Comments

Remember that contradictions are a big part of his Alinsky tap-dance. Remember, too, that there is LOTS of foreign money that he can (illegally) take as his back hits the wall.

    beloved2 in reply to Ragspierre. | March 20, 2012 at 6:55 pm

    He took illegal donations from the Russians in 2008 so why wouldn’t he repeat? Wikileaks released that info this month.
    Wikileaks: Obama secretly took Russian money for his campaign
    http://noisyroom.net/blog/2012/03/04/wikileaks-obama-secretly-took-russian-money-for-his-campaign/
    “…Among Stratfor’s clients are the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Marines, Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman.

    In an internal email dated Nov. 7, 2008, a Stratfor operative sent the following information to the company’s chain of staffers:

    From: Fred Burton [Sent: Friday, November 07, 2008 7:41 AM
    To: [email protected]
    Subject: Insight – The Dems & Dirty Tricks ** Internal Use Only…
    Several key pieces of information are contained in this stunning admission by an operative of one of the most respected intelligence gathering corporations in the world. First, the Democratic Party engaged in election tampering, a felony, by stuffing ballot boxes in Pennsylvania and Ohio…
    And third, Russian money went to the campaign of Barack Obama much as Chinese money went to the campaign of Bill Clinton during the 1990s.

    These are serious issues that throw into question the integrity of the U.S. elections process and the lengths to which the political parties will go to secure a win, in this case, the Democratic Party and Barack Obama…”

I thought being President came third.
“Going on vacation” should be in the second spot, don’t you think?

    And don’t forget golf. Without his golf outings, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself!

      Cheerful in Marin in reply to irv. | March 20, 2012 at 2:14 pm

      Obama’s golf outings serve as camouflage for his cigarette habit – I see plenty of cigarette butts out on the golf course (usually in the ash can of course).

Considering all the Trillions of dollars he has given away, I would be surprised if he couldn’t get another billion to fund his campaign. The first round of big money that got him into the Whitehouse ended up being the most profitable investment in history. When has a few billion bought so many trillions of the national treasury?

Midwest Rhino | March 20, 2012 at 9:50 am

Being president is first, using office to fund his friends, which preceded the campaigning

I. “Redistribute wealth to campaign donors and political allies”
…A. Fund projects, bailouts (eg. GM, GS, Solyndra, unions, etc)
…B. Obstruct funding of capitalism (oil leases, coal, etc.)

II. Call unions, bundlers, etc. remind them who daddy sugar is

III. Campaign stops
…A. blame Bush
…B. four more years to fundamentally destroy our nation

IV. Be President (of those that vote Democrat)
…A. Trash allies
…B. Bow to enemies
…C. Borrow money
…D. Race Card, Bigot Card, Predecessors all stupid
…E. Empower EPA, Holder to run roughshod
…F. Blame Congress

something like that … lol

    OcTEApi in reply to Midwest Rhino. | March 20, 2012 at 10:43 am

    Well organized list, I worked as a contractor at GM, Ford and Chrysler for 12 years, you have necessary skill level to be a dept. manager or at least program manager.

    ==

    With a donation of as little as $3 dollars or more, you could win a shot at a “WE” dream job at D2, additionally give at least $5 in order to be automatically entered into a raffle for dinner with Obama and Vice President Biden.

    A lot of folks will be interpreting our numbers as a measure of this campaign’s support.

    They’re not wrong, but they are wrong about why.

    We measure our success not in dollars but in people — in the number of everyday Americans who’ve chosen to give whatever they can afford because they know we’ve got more work to do. #FAIL

Joan Of Argghh | March 20, 2012 at 9:51 am

But he doesn’t do anything different. He’s doubling down on everything he wants, intent on destroying the economy. At some point, we can’t keep ascribing incompetence to what is plainly purposeful.

If incompetence is losing him the support, you’d think he would act differently. But he’s supremely confident of re-election.

Issa Oversight of the Department of Energy’s Stimulus Spending

This should be EPIC take down of gov’t green energy crony capitalism.

Watch LIVE March 20, 2012 @ 10am
http://oversight.house.gov/hearing/oversight-of-the-department-of-energys-stimulus-spending/

NC Mountain Girl | March 20, 2012 at 10:09 am

Here’s what I’d watch for that won’t be picked up much in the media. The executives at regulated business will still feel compelled to write the checks to Obama but watch the actual turnout. In 2008 it was easy for these people to find associates to show up to listen to Obama over breakfast, lunch or dinner. Indeed they probably had to add extra tables. From an early report at PJ Media on a sparsely attended Obama breakfast address in California, in 2012 the executives’ personal assistants are making a lot of extra calls and still end up with empty chairs. An empty $25,000 table of ten is still $25,000 but it does not energize a campaign to be play to a half full room.

“Obama always has been a complete phony when it comes to campaigns.”

There are 5 extraneous words in that sentence.

DINORightMarie | March 20, 2012 at 10:20 am

This piece of Leni Reifenstahl-worthy propaganda, narrated by Tom Hanks, seems to be a sign of the ill-fated campaigner-in-chief’s OFA/administration epic failure this time around:

Tom Hanks Glenn Frey…Racial Shocker…Blackface Jokes….

…costing about a cool half-million donor dollars, to boot! Shameless.

About a month ago, he purposely downplaying the billion dollar meme as the optics are horrible.

He’s got the media. They’re worth a half-billion at least.

Going forward, it will be remarkable to hear the left whine and bitch about the corrupting influence of money in politics when it was Obama who forever ended public financing of presidential campaigns.

The ObaMafia will begin accepting illegal foreign and over the limit domestic contributions through the internet by simply turning off security measures for credit card donations and accept money from anonymous sources. They did this in ’08. The sources of these online contributions need to be thoroughly examined this go round and reported on frequently as the campaign season progresses.

The WaPo story below from October 2008 is an eye opener.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/28/AR2008102803413.html

He’ll raise enough that Romney won’t be able to outspend him. That’s the only important metric.

And if they need to, they’ll cheat. That’s always an option when you are running Dem.

I think it’s still likely that they will match their 2008 fundraising, though not exceed it, and that’s not a great showing for an incumbent President who majors in continuous campaigning. But his campaign is dreaming if they think they can count on pulling in as much between August and November as they have to date. If it looks then like Obama is likely to win, that will happen as donors rush to get themselves on record. Of course, in such a scenario, he won’t need the extra money. If it looks bad for him, he will continue to struggle to raise money, even though he’ll need it more.

In any case, even $600 million — substantially less than 2008 — is probably ample.

    NC Mountain Girl in reply to JEBurke. | March 20, 2012 at 12:44 pm

    It’s not just what he brings in. Obama’s campaign has a high burn rate for one that isn’t yet heavily advertising. Part of it is it takes resources to replace one bundled $30,000 donation with 10,000 entries in the $3 dinner raffles. Another part seems to be that in anticipation of the $1B goal the campaign became top heavy with salaries and perks.

    It would be fitting if Obama’s campaign hit troubles this summer because he is as careless with his own spending as he has been with taxpayer dollars.

Subotai Bahadur | March 20, 2012 at 1:21 pm

Midwest Rhino @ March 20, 2012 at 9:50 am has a list of things that Buraq Hussein has prioritized. And that list is where his money will come from.

I. “Redistribute wealth to campaign donors and political allies”
…A. Fund projects, bailouts (eg. GM, GS, Solyndra, unions, etc)
…B. Obstruct funding of capitalism (oil leases, coal, etc.)

II. Call unions, bundlers, etc. remind them who daddy sugar is

Item I. A. especially.

Obama has stolen literally $trillions from the Treasury and given it to his political allies. This is the “Chicago Way”, even if it is Chicago-on-the-Moskva-River. You do not get largesse from the Machine without a kickback. Even a small percentage of what has been stolen will give him his billion or more. All of it will be under the table, and law enforcement will have a deliberate and studied indifference to its existence. They will not need the credit card route from overseas, and will not use it because the Republicans are on to it and will squawk. Your burn rate in a campaign does not mean much when it has to be compared to how fast the Federal Reserve can create dollars out of thin air with their computers.

Subotai Bahadur

JackRussellTerrierist | March 21, 2012 at 2:08 pm

They don’t care where they get the money as long as it’s enough to defeat the ‘pub. If Romney gets the nomination, they won’t have to spend as much and can skim more for themselves and their cronies. But regardless of what they believe their magic dollar number needs to be, they will certainly reach it with foreign government contributions. All those apologies and bowing and scraping episodes to unsavory foreign leaders will come home to roost with a nest of golden eggs.