Lump of Money?

Jerome Armstrong and Ed Kilgore talk about the Q1 fundraising numbers. The previous record was $8.9 million for Al Gore in 1999. John Edwards is far surpassing that with a $14 million haul and he's not even doing very well. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton pulled in $22 million and $26 million respectively, plus Clinton gets to add $10 million already raised from her Senate account.

The moral of the story, I think, is the clearest possible indication that there isn't some fixed pool of "progressive money" that has to be fought over. Clearly, eight years of increasing levels of progressive political mobilization and progressive institution building have, combined with three candidates who each have strong appeal, are able to produce a vastly expanded pool of donations from what was out there in 1999. I think it's too bad that the frontrunner continues to be a weak choice for the nomination whose appeal, though real, doesn't really appeal to me, but it's hard not to be excited about the general ferment of people engaging with the process.

Comments

The fact that they are, for the first time I believe, allowed to raise money for both the primary and general elections also inflates the numbers quite substantially.

This is not only because any given donor can (and should) give twice as much to their preferred candidate, but also is free to "donate" (i.e. pledge) general election money to more than one, since only one of them will ever be able to touch it. Why wouldn't a dedicated Dem pledge general election funds to all three candidates?

Note that none of them, as far as I've seen, have split their reported numbers into primary and general.

Posted by right | April 2, 2007 9:11 AM

"Note that none of them, as far as I've seen, have split their reported numbers into primary and general."

Edwards broke down 13m primary / 1m general.

Given HRC's dominance among big donors, I expect a far larger chunk of her 26m will be general money. Bill Clinton held quite a few $4.6k required events. So HRC's lead over Edwards in primary money should be significantly smaller than it currently appears.

Posted by Petey | April 2, 2007 9:18 AM

I'd say Obama being a mere 15% or so less than HRC is bad news for 'Hillary!' That's not much of a juggernaut.

Posted by otto | April 2, 2007 9:18 AM

"it's hard not to be excited about the general ferment of people engaging with the process."

Well, if you think the biggest issue in American politics is the income distribution skew that has finally reached the level of the 1920's, then the general ferment of people with lots of disposable income engaging with the process is easy not to get excited about.

Posted by Petey | April 2, 2007 9:21 AM

And, as others have noted, I think Q2 results are more important than Q1. Seeing what you can do when you've already maxed out your obvious donors is where the game gets interesting.

For example, Dodd will be extremely lucky to pull in half his Q1 totals in Q2. But since Dodd doesn't matter, seeing what happens with the Big Three in Q2 is where it gets real.

HRC is never going to have a problem with cash. The question is whether or not Obama and Edwards can keep rolling in the dollars.

Posted by Petey | April 2, 2007 9:37 AM

And off topic, but check this out. I'd say Giuliani's chances of even making it to Iowa are no better than 50/50.

Posted by Petey | April 2, 2007 9:53 AM

I think Ben Smith gets the right storyline on this one...

Posted by Petey | April 2, 2007 10:35 AM

Er, why would we want to call this "progressive money"?

First, it's hardly certain that all of this money is from progressives - in at least Hilary's case, it most certainly includes some amount of "definitely not progressive in any sense" money - money from corporations, New York developers (or lawyers or bankers etc etc etc) who want to go to fancy events and display the trophy wife and so on. That's not money that goes to "any progressive candidate" but rather "candidates who have very high name recognition (i.e. Bush or Clinton)".

Second, money donated to Democratic politicians on this level is generally frittered away into consultants' fees, media buys and random nonsense. It does not help build anything permanent beyond Mark Penn's new condo, the profit line of media corps and the garbage dumps of New Jersey (from the immense amounts of rubber chicken that gets thrown away from fundraisers).

Third, as Petey notes, that income inequality has gone through the roof (and thus generating large donations) is no particular item for celebration.

Posted by burritoboy | April 2, 2007 1:41 PM

What groups of people are excited about Hillary?

Posted by Cal Ulmann | April 2, 2007 2:16 PM

I think the excitement comes from the fact that it appears that democratic candidates will not be at a disadvantage financially in comparison to their republican opponents. Yes, I am excited about this. Yes, I am also aware that this may be the result of more income inequality which I am not excited about.

Posted by mpowell | April 2, 2007 5:31 PM

Thanks to right and Petey for the education on primary/general money. I also have a hard time taking much joy in these kinds of fundraising numbers as a sign of excitement and engagement.

I'd be interested to see a breakdown into numbers of donors by size of contribution. It's possible that Obama's total, for instance, represents almost twice as many voters as HRC's; that would demonstrate more excitement about him.

Back in the early stages in 2004, Edwards had the highest percentage of big donors of all the major candidates. I'd bet that's not true today.

What is Evan Bayh doing with all the money he raised? Planning to buy the VP slot?

Posted by Nell | April 3, 2007 9:49 AM

From an Edwards email:
=============
Total raised: Over $14 million (nearly twice what we raised this quarter last time around)
Total contributors: 40,000, representing every state of the union
Grassroots victory: 80 percent of all contributions were $100 or less
==============

$3 million was raised online, much of it in the last week.

I'd be interested to compare the number of donors and the $100 or less percentage with Obama and HRC.

Posted by Nell | April 3, 2007 1:02 PM