Newsweek: Only 3% of Obama's donors have "maxed out", compared to 70% for Hillary

[TeamJordan23]

Obama has lots more money now and deeper pockets moving forward. He raised $32 million in the month of January compared to about $14 million for Clinton. 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.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/108697

[Colobo]

1. Great news!

[NJSecularist]

2. Ouch.

That's gotta leave a mark for Hillary's campaign. Her financial woes are as bad as reported.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. A few notes

1. Where is Alter getting these figures? He seldom tells us where he gets his facts in ANY article he writes.

2. If you look at the candidates' fundraising for the last year, you will see why. Hillary's had a longer run of contributions; Obama is getting a huge amount all at once. This may be sustainable. Maybe.

3. Clinton and Obama each will be getting new donors as the campaign continues. The HRC money crunch and the BHO money flood are twin artifacts of the same series of events. They will change, and probably unpredictably.

--p!

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. Keep telling yourself that. nt

[Dogmudgeon]

9. So show us otherwise

But you can't. You're lost in a partisan frenzy.

--p!

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. Just do the math.

Jaysus.

BTW, there's nothing partisan about it. I'm not wild about Obama, either. But at least he isn't DLC and didn't hire Mark Penn.

[GoldieAZ49]

11. wishful thinking

without substance or proof

[Dogmudgeon]

22. A stunning 6-word dismissal

That's actually pretty deep for an Obamaniac.

Wrong, but deep.

--p!

[TeamJordan23]

12. However, if his facts are wrong...the Clinton camp would state it is a falsehood

And so lets see if they do that tomorrow. My guess is that they won't.

[loveangelc]

4. interesting

[usregimechange]

6. Kick!

[Cha]

7. This is wild..I always

thought the hilarys would have indefatigable pockets but I guess I didn't know how much her campaign was costing them.

[TeamJordan23]

24. Looks like Obama is now 'officially' a better fundraiser than the Clintons. nm

[Cha]

27. From the People where it counts!

The gift that keeps on giving.

[Proud2BAmurkin]

8. So Clinton has a finite number of donors? That story is meaningless.

[NJSecularist]

10. Did you even read the story?

She's tapped out on 70% of her finite donors, Obama has only tapped out on 3% of those finite donors.

[krkaufman]

14. I found it annoying that they didn't tell you the actual number of donors for each. n/t

[joshcryer]

16. No, you don't understand, 70% is meaningless, that doesn't prove anything.

It's just an arbitrary metric, it doesn't account for potential new donors at all.

[TheWraith]

17. It's as far from meaningless as you can get.

The fact that 70% are maxed out means that she's NOT bringing in new donors.

[joshcryer]

19. Where are these stats from? They're meaningless without context.

Are they before 2/5? Are they her biggest contributors so far (neglecting any new potential donors)?

I want numbers, not conjecture.

[Proud2BAmurkin]

28. Wrong, she has new donors and got a crapload of them today

[krkaufman]

13. Now you know why Hillary is clamoring for debates.

She NEEDS the free air time.

[GoldieAZ49]

15. good article thank you

[gristy]

18. This makes zero sense

"roughly 70% of Hillary's donors have contributed the $2,300 maximum allowed by law"

And only 3% of Obama's donors are maxed out? Where does this guy get his figures?

Well, I went and checked myself, and the guy is clearly stupid or lying. I'll guess the latter.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/search.asp?sort=N&name=&state=&zip=&employ=&txtCand=&txtCID=N00000019&amt=a&txtSoft=N&cycle=2008
So the link above is to Clinton's donors sorted by name. This is the first page of 50 donors, and exactly 20 of 50, or 40%, contributed $2300 and are "maxed out"

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/search.asp?sort=N&name=&state=&zip=&employ=&txtCand=&txtCID=N00009638&amt=a&txtSoft=N&cycle=2008
And this link is the first 50 Obama donors, again sorted by name. Here you will see 10 of 50 are "maxed out", or 20%.

Now before all you statisticians get in a huff, give me the odds that if I take the time to count all the donors maxed out at $2300 (and I'll tell you I'm not going to - I've already spent too much time on this liar), that I'll get 70% of Clinton donors maxed out and 3% of Obama donors maxed out.

[quakerboy]

20. so

riddle me this.. something i really don't understand at all.. I looked at the pages, and something struck me. simplest thing would be to check the donations by amount rather than looking through pages of names to check the averages. How is it that a few people are listed at 9600, more at 6400? I could see 4600, 2300 to primary and general respectively. but how can one guy have 10k? What am i missing here?

[joshcryer]

23. Haha, wow, Obama math. Damn, that's hilarious.

[HeraldSquare212]

25. Here's what a group who looked at all the data said:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8374_Page2.html

Obama on pace to raise $30 mil in Feb

By: Jeanne Cummings
Feb 6, 2008 05:41 PM EST


-snip-

According to a study by The Campaign Finance Institute, a nonpartisan organization that tracks political giving, only about a third of the donors who gave Obama $200 or more had given the maximum.

In contrast, Clinton raised about half of her money from donors who gave the maximum.

More striking, the report found that nearly half of Obama’s individual contributors in the fourth quarter of 2007 gave donations of $200 or less — amounts so small that the Federal Election Commission doesn’t even demand the givers be named on disclosure reports.

According to the campaign, that pattern continued in January. Of the thousands of Internet donations Obama received, 90 percent amounted to less than $100 each. Ten thousand people gave between $5 and $10.

-snip-

[rinsd]

26. 63% becomes roughly 70? 43% becomes 3%

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/donordems.asp?cycle=2008

[Proud2BAmurkin]

29. It's the new Obamath

[KittyWampus]

30. that's because Obama has an actual grassroots

[jackson_dem]

32. So does Hillary.

Clinton 48.97% (6,967,302)
Obama 48.04% (6,835,447)

[ElsewheresDaughter]

34. as does Clinton

[TexasObserver]

31. Her contributors are tapped out.

She can't use most of the cash she has, because it cannot be spent in the primary. Most of her money for the primary is spent. Most of the money she has can't be used now. It's only for the general election, if she makes it that far.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

33. and just how do they know that?