One of the many enduring myths and legends of the Obama 2008 victory is that Obama’s record-breaking fundraising came from small donors. Perpetuating the false impression that small donors are Obama’s base is a priority of the Obama campaign, which now focuses on running low cost ($5, $3) dinner raffles to run up the number of small donors and bring down the average donation size.
In reality, Obama always has been heavily dependent on big donors and bundlers.
Given Obama’s obsessive-compulsive, Rainman-like class warfare rhetoric and demonization of those who achieve financial success, it it not surprising that large donors are refusing to feed Obama at the rate they have in the past. Via The NY Times:
President Obama’s re-election campaign is straining to raise the huge sums it is counting on to run against Mitt Romney, with sharp dropoffs in donations from nearly every major industry forcing it to rely more than ever on small contributions and a relative handful of major donors.From Wall Street to Hollywood, from doctors and lawyers, the traditional big sources of campaign cash are not delivering for the Obama campaign as they did four years ago. The falloff has left his fund-raising totals running behind where they were at the same point in 2008 — though well ahead of Mr. Romney’s — and has induced growing concern among aides and supporters as they confront the prospect that Republicans and their “super PAC” allies will hold a substantial advantage this fall.
That’s not to say Obama isn’t raising a lot of money, he is.
As The Times points out, Obama still is doing well with Hollywood, high-tech and Wall Street, but he’s finding it harder and harder, necessitating 100 fundraisers since the spring of 2011. Obama does not hesitate to rely on disgraced bundler John Corzine.
Mr. Money Means Nothing To Me is as money hungry as they get.
But Obama has to do a lot more than merely good fundraising because his campaign already is burning through a lot of cash. For example, in March Obama’s campaign raised $46.4 million and spent $37.7 million.
Obama appears unlikely to be the billion dollar candidate he hoped to be, although he will be the several hundred million dollar candidate for sure.
Why people feed him even that amount is beyond me.
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