If you look at the fundraising in the Democratic race, you'll see that Hillary Clinton has put together an amazing organization that's shattering all the records except . . . the ones being created by Barack Obama. In short, both contenders are raising tons of money. This sort of thing, which you see time and again, ought to debunk the "lump of fundraising" fallacy that seems to underwrite much establishmentarian loathing of contested primaries. It's true that if you look at all this money and simply assume it would be out there even if there were no contest happening, that it looks like a lot of cash being burned in a negative-sum intra-party fight. In the real world, though, it's the contests that drive the fundraising.
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Lump of Fundraising
07 Feb 2008 08:57 am
Comments (19)
Check out this graphic.
$7 MILLION Dollars donated to Barack in the last 24 hours. And I just donated another $750 to Barack. Go Obama!
Obama's past $7 million now. Just in case people hadn't noticed.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/contribute_c/sincefeb5_email/graphic
Anyone else sense a degree of "going for the kill" to Obama's recent drive? It is the sort of fire I personally like to see.
As an Obama supporter because of his foreign policy judgment, ethics, non-dynastism, and inclusiveness I must present a caveat about this fund-raising. Yes, larger amounts of funds are being raised probably because of the close contest, but that is part of the issue. They are being raised for a contest that is less important than the main event. There is the possibility that Hillary (de facto nomineee circa January 2007) would raise less money absent Obama, but would be able to spend it all on preparations for the general election.
But I'm probably wrong.
In addition, my impression is that someone who gives once--say, during a long, contested, high-profile primary--is more likely to give again in the general. They feel they've become part of the process by giving, they're comfortable with the idea, and it's months later so they can (one hopes) afford to give again. I see no way this amount of fundraising is a bad thing.
Stupid question - does the $2300 limit reset after the primary season? In other words, can one donate another $2300 once GE starts, if they have already donated in the primaries?
If not, then it is clearly not a good thing to have a highly contested primary.
And now Clinton has raised $4 million since Super Tuesday. Only $4 million? Gosh, I just feel so sorry for her. It makes me sick to even think about what she's going through. I'm going to give her another couple hundred to help ease the pain of Obama's misogynistic fundraising assault.
The thing is that 4 million is probably a one-shot deal donated by women who are desperate to see Hillary stay in this. She hasn't really taken the time to cultivate a donor base large enough that it would make a reliable cash machine.
Clinton's burn rate has been incredibly high. I doubt 4 million will see them through Virginia. Ms, No. Lets be completely honest here, if they weren't very desperate they wouldn't have issues a statement about how desperate they were and then start begging for money.
Sort of reminds me of the small consolation that John Kerry received the second highest vote count in US History.
MS, the primary and the general are two different elections. You can give $2300 in each. In fact, Clinton has collected a lot of donations for the general already from people who've hit the $2300 limit for the primary. Not sure what happens to those if she's not the nominee.
MS, I think it resets. It wouldn't make a lot of sense if it didn't.
When I checked the link TLM posted about two or three hours ago, it was at $6.5 million. Now it is at $7.5 million. That's at least a quarter of a million dollars per hour early in the morning. Not bad.
KCinDC: under federal election rules favorable to sitting senators, I belive she's allowed to spend unused general election funds on cocaine and hookers.
MS -
YES! It doesn't actually "reset", but they are considered two different contests. Thus, if there was only one candidate, but the DNC hadn't officially set the nomination yet, you could donate BOTH to the Primary Contest, and then again to the General. The $$ for the Primary contest can carry over to the General, however, so in that sense it resets after a nominee is declared. Thus, the night before the DNC convention, if you'd never donated before, you could donate $4600 to a campaign ($2300 for Primary, $2300 for General), where as after the nomination, you can no longer donate to the Primary. Thus the day AFTER the nomination, your limit is $2300. So DONATE NOW! You can donate more later, but after the nomination, you are set at that limit!
Interesting question: what percentage of Clinton's new fundraising isn't only for the general election? Mitt Romney tried the same trick after getting beat in New Hampshire, raising $4 million in the next three days, later revealing that $3 million of that was maxed-out donors chipping in funds that couldn't be used in the primary. Clinton sure has a lot of maxed-out donors, is it possible that this new fundraising strength is largely a propaganda effort?
I'd ask the same question about Obama, but it seems like his fundraising strength comes from a larger range of people chipping in a couple hundred bucks at a time, rather than maxed-out donors.
This was an interesting statistic in Jonathan Alter's op-ed in Newsweek this week (which otherwise I found kind of simplistic and silly), I haven't seen it elsewhere but I thought it was striking:
Only 3 percent of Obama's hundreds of thousands of small donors have "maxed out," which means that the campaign can go back to them again and again for more. By contrast, roughly 70 percent of Hillary's donors have contributed the $2,300 maximum allowed by law.
There's another thing driving the process that illustrates the fallacy behind most of the thought behind campaign finance law, or the thought that the guy with the most money always wins.
If Ted Kennedy moved to Texas and assembled a $1 billion campaign warchest and tried to run for Senate, he still wouldn't have a prayer of winning. If some sort of arch conservative in the Senate were to move to MA, with a $1 billion warchest, he wouldn't have a prayer of winning either.
Who has the most money only matter when there is very little daylight between the candidates, as in if one never read the political coverage in the newspaper, one wouldn't see any noticeable difference in the workaday world one lives in. Or, who has the most dimes only counts when there ain't a dime's worth of difference between who's running.
There ain't all that much daylight between Hillary! and the Obamessiah, so his money edge will loom large.
Over on the Reps side, there is quite a bit of daylight between the candidates, at least as Reps measure it, so the one with the most money ain't winning.
Matt is right. The % of GDP spent on campaigns is tiny in the US compared to, say, in Mexico. In 1993, the President of Mexico got 30 guests at a dinner party to pledge 25 million American dollars each to the ruling party's campaign warchest -- $750 million in one night!
In contrast, total spending on all elections federal, local, and state in 1996 in America was pretty similar to what Microsoft spent on marketing the introduction of Windows 95.
Big story now is that Clinton loaned the campaign five million in January.
"Now that's what one might call a heckuva coincidence. A handful of weeks ago, Bill Clinton disentangles his investment partnership with billionaire Ron Burkle, producing an estimated $20 million windfall. And now we learn that the suddenly flush Clintons are loaning Hillary's campaign $5 million from their joint assets to bridge it through a funding rough patch."
Hillary's $5 Million Dump Truck
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-cooper/hillarys-5-million-dump_b_85534.html
Comments closed February 21, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
We will also have better ground organizations in place for the general election in each state with a contested primary.
Posted by Tim | February 7, 2008 9:18 AM