The Obama re-election effort raised $70 million last quarter. 98% of that was from donors giving less than $250, with an average donation of $56. If anything demonstrates the need for a primary challenge more than those numbers, I don’t know what it is.
Over in the Republican race, Perry raised $17 million and has $15 million on hand. Romney hasn’t released his numbers yet, but he’s likely to have raised less than Perry and end up with about the same amount of cash on hand. They’ll both blow it on primaries, as will the new front-runner, Herman Cain, who isn’t running a serious fundraising operation. Last quarter, he raised $2.5 million and loaned his campaign $5 million. His recent surge probably won’t net him anything like Perry or Romney numbers in a filing that covers a period where he was mainly considered an also-ran.
From the campaigns I’ve watched, it’s crystal clear that the best use of money by a campaign is when it spends from its own bank account. Special interests have their own agenda, they mainly focus on advertising (not GOTV and organizing), and the single-issue advocates sometimes hurt more than they help. (For example, does the kinder, gentler version of Mitt Romney who will emerge after the primaries really want a bunch of anti-gay, anti-immigrant ads run in his name?) All the Citizens United Koch money in the world won’t make up for Romney’s need to spend time and effort raising money for the general election, and Obama is already $150 million ahead of Mitt.
Update: The “primary Obama” comment is sarcasm. Must be a little early for it.
Samara Morgan
that is why Huck, Rubio, Christie, etc are giving 2012 a pass.
money has a voice.
possibly the oligarchs can anti-up millions for mitt after the primaries, but that wont be enough to elect a mormon.
Samara Morgan
here is romney’s problem.
amk
Close to a million donors. And the election season hasn’t even started yet.
4tehlulz
Romney’d better hurry up with that fundraising; at the rate that primaries are moving up, NH could be next week.
amk
@Samara Morgan: LOL. Poor mittens.
arguingwithsignposts
@4tehlulz: Isn’t that the shit? The states approach primaries like they approach “job creation, by poaching from each other.
I forget, but do the dems do this shuffle too?
Anya
@Samara Morgan: Oh, for the love of Steve Jobs, will you please just stop with the Mormon bashing. This is not the Free Republic. It’s not okay to attack someone based on his religion, or to excuse bigotry. Get Over It!
mikefromArlington
FDL must be pissed.
cleek
@mikefromArlington:
when aren’t they?
Davis X. Machina
@arguingwithsignposts: Generally it’s a state-government thing, so the rules are made for both parties, by the party that has the legislature and has the ability to make the state-wide rules. Dems have been guilty of it, but New Hampshire is on autopilot, and the remaining early states are GOP-controlled, caucus states, or both. Nevada last year was tetchy for the Dems, IIRC.
James
Perhaps I’m insufficiently caffienated, but your first paragraph makes no sense whatsoever.
Raising 70 million dollars in a quarter mainly from small donors — whaaaa? shows Obama needs to be primaried? Huh? Makes no logical sense.
Of course, I may be missing the snark. Please tell me it’s snark.
R-Jud
@James: Total snark, don’t worry.
James
I thought had mistakenly landed at FDL there for a moment.
Cat Lady
I can’t wait to see what comes out of Romney’s mouth while he campaigns in South Carolina. He’s got nothing the confederate taliban want, and it doesn’t get any easier for him from there.
Anya
@mikefromArlington: Not to mention David Sirota. He was making a HUGE deal about 2008’s small donors “abandoning Obama”. What a tool!
arguingwithsignposts
@James: mistermix can be very subtle with the snark. moar caffeine is the answer.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Anya:
Yes, we can! bash Mormons.
Woof woof.
lol
I wonder if this will cause reporters to revisit their various “Obama’s small donors are closing their wallets because he’s a disappointment” articles that they were furiously putting out just a couple weeks ago.
Exurban Mom
@James: Don’t worry, I’m pre-caffeinated, and I had the same problem with my snark detector.
That’s a whole lotta moola…glad that Obama will at least be able to fight back this go-round.
amk
@mikefromArlington: firebaggers, emobaggers, sirota, that adam green punk. whole lotta heads exploding this morning. 1 million donors. Eat that punks.
Anya
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Saw it and it does not bash Mormons.
JPL
Is Jane packing her bags and moving to New Hampshire to help Mitt win?
Samara Morgan
@Anya: im just pointing out mitt cant be elected if a significant portion of the GOP base wont vote for him. the base is desperately anti-Romney and a good part of it is anti-mormon bigotry.
Cain is winning with the base right now.
i dont think a jew or a muslim can be elected president in 2012 either.
myself, as i have said before, i dont care if Romney is a mormon. Sufis dont proselytize because everyone is what they are supposed to be, what they have the substrate to be. Man cannot acquire what he cannot use.
Atheists should be atheist, xians should be xians.
im saying the GOP base cares, some of them quite fervently, about that .
arguingwithsignposts
@Samara Morgan:
Yeah, especially because there are no jews or muslims running.
JPL
Evangelicals will fall in line to oust the muslim in chief because he’s a so.c.ialist. It doesn’t matter who the repubs nominate.
MikeJ
Cain, leading the republican presidential polls, raised $2.5M.
Elizabeth Warren raised $3m.
CarolDuhart
@amk: And there’s plenty of time to get more and more donors. I read somewhere that Obama had 3 million e-mails the last time around.
It gets even better. Obama can sit on most of his loot until the General. Opening offices and training organizers isn’t all that expensive, and most probably won’t be needed until the primaries start in earnest. Obama will not only be able to fight back, but do a little bombardment as well.
amk
@JPL: she must be praying at grover fucking norquist’s altar now.
Samara Morgan
@Anya: it mocks mormons.
jsfox
@MikeJ:
Ouch :)!
Cassidy
@Anya: Those fucksticks sent how many of millions of dollars to keep homosexuals as second class citizens in California? And not just the Mormons. These assholes have browbeat this country with their various religions and have made it a foundation for thier ignorance and bigotry. To top it off, they want to impose that disgusting set of beliefs on the rest of us.
Not only should they be made fun of, they should be shamed, vilified, and driven into the ocean. Every holy book related to that odious religion should be heaped into a large pile, liberally doused with an accelerant and then set ablaze as homosexuals in pro-choice t-shirts and rosaries pass out marshmallows, graham crackers, 60% cocoa chocolate. If we’re really lucky, we can catch some child-fucking priest before they are reassigned to quiet villages in South America and us them to hold up the bonfire…from the inside.
A Mom Anon
@JPL: Nah,she’ll be heading to Mass. to help Scott Brown defeat Elizabeth Warren.
amorphous
I’ve long contended that the internet requires a sarcasm font, and I’ve long advocated using Comic Sans as said sarcasm font.
El Cid
Speaking of support for Obama, The Ticket seems to detect a connection between citizens’ knowledge of reality and citizens’ voiced support or opposition for things.
Who’da thunk that people might support legislation if they knew what it was versus just being asked if they supported something that had a name and sounded like a big piece of legislation?
It appears to me that it could be important for people to know stuff in order to decide what they want to do and want to happen. It could even help them make important decisions about for whom they might wish to vote.
If only there were groups of people, organized into groups or ‘companies’, whose job it was to find, and gather, and somehow disseminate information on what is happening.
Perhaps writing these things down in journals, or something. We could call it journalizing, and everyone doing it could be journalizers, and together it would be journalization.
They could then spread this information by writing and printing stuff, or talking into the radio machine, or even showing moving pictures on the TV box, or maybe even someday magically just pushing information from a home automaton reading and typing device.
It could be, like, a whole profession, dedicated to helping the people understand the world around them so as to be functional members of a democratic society!
But, who would have the money to do something like that?
amk
@CarolDuhart: yeah, tell me about it.
Messina said the campaign was using the money to build its operation. He said the campaign has opened up three new field offices every week during the past three months, and volunteers and organizers have made 3 million phone calls and in-person visits to voters.
“We’re up against a Republican Party and special interest-funded groups that will spend hundreds of millions of dollars spreading any message that they believe will defeat the President and roll back our efforts to build a fairer economy that rewards hard work and responsibility, not large corporations,” Messina said.
Samara Morgan
@JPL: Cain is asswhupping Romney in the polls right now. the GOP base is mostly anti-Romney, the GOP elites are pro-Romney.
its war.
and if the voting both relly is as private as the grave, White Skyfather might override Karl Rove for some.
geg6
@mikefromArlington:
I admit it, that was my first thought, too. LOL!
That said, I’m one of those small donors. Can’t manage as much cash as the last time around, but I am even more determined this time. It’s even more crucial this time around. I’m all in.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Anya: Samara’s here to prove both sides do it, no matter what side she’s on.
kd bart
Ok. Who will be the first member of the media to report that Obama’s Q3 fundraising is down from Q2 fundraising thus it means that “Obama is losing support amongst Democrats and is in a weak position.”?
jayackroyd
Just to be clear. If a million donors gave an average of 56 dollars, then those million donors gave 56 million dollars, out of 70 million. So 80 percent of the money (56/70) came from 98 percent of the donors. And 20 percent came from two percent of the donors.
Now I get how the large number of individual small donors is a sign of continued broad support for the president. But, as with the 2008 campaign, those big donors are still going to be the ones who have sway in the administration.
Big Pharma, banksters, et alia.
SIA
@El Cid: I like your ideas.
Anya
@Samara Morgan: Spoken like someone who did not see the show. The message that you get at the end is that we use religion as a nice story so that we give ourselves hope and that we cope with life’s difficulties.
Samara Morgan
@Anya: its ok to attack them when they insist in imposing their goofball cult on other unwilling citizens.
that is what proselytizing is.
in colorado mormons have colonized whole small town governments.
we call them polygs here.
i saw the Book of Mormon too.
It MOCKS mormons.
CarolDuhart
I expect there will be full-blown screaming from the remaining “Primary Obama” people for the next week. With this fundraising performance, and a possible Iowa/New Hampshire primary in January, this puts the nails in all four sides of a “Primary Obama” drive. Nobody has either the time or the money, especially on such short notice.
amk
@jayackroyd: Try harder at spinning. The campaign season hasn’t even started and he has already doubled the donor base as compared to 2008. Eat that.
WereBear
@El Cid: I find your ideas intriguing. If only someone would invent the “news-like-letter.”
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@jayackroyd: And yet none of it comes from lobbyists.
What would actually be interesting would be to see him spend some of that on Democrats running for the House and Senate. Democrats that are smart enough to accept it.
eastriver
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for not using a sideways smile to indicate that you’re joking. THANK YOU.
(Emoticons are a true marker of retardation.)
Ash Can
Cue the resident trolls to rush in and clamor that there’s no way Obama will be re-elected.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@eastriver: Actually, emoticons are another instance of the human brain finding patterns.
Needing to write a comment about emoticons is about the same as needing to put text in caps to make a point.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): After the post, I realized what I should have said (sadly):
eastriver, I love how you make a point of not using emoticons by USING CAPS.
Samara Morgan
@Anya:
yup.
mockery.
i take it you dont “get” South Park either.
Samara Morgan
Look juicers.
the polls showing Cain asswhupping Romney are not pro-Cain polls.
they are pro- Anyone-But-Romney polls.
and some goodly part of that is evangelical on mormon action.
the GOP is at minimum 50% evangelical at this point.
Deal.
im sry if im hurrtin’ your xian feefees.
not.
Anya
@Samara Morgan: you’re hopeless.
salvador dalai llama
So Obama took in as much money as, basically, the entire Republican field? Good to know. So how long before we hear the Republicans whining about needing to get the money out of politics?
Samara Morgan
@Anya:
and you’re clueless.
/sideways smile
nancydarling
Arkansas republican state legislator, chicken farmer, and all round dipshit, Nate Bell posted this on his twitter feed after reading a Slate article on Romney:
Some one named Bluto replied thus:
General Stuck
Here is a spanky new winner
Like with destroying SS and medicare, the wingers are unbound and unplugged with the ideological zealotry racing toward political suicide, most of it symptomatic of Obama Derangement Syndrome. Next they will propose soylenting the poor into tasty yellow wafers.
Must be nice to be a party of whackjobs and STILL have decent polling. What a country.
chopper
@eastriver:
i’ll second that. i fucking hate emoticons.
General Stuck
linky – early thirty
Samara Morgan
@salvador dalai llama: this is the Insane Clown Posse Krash Kar part of the GOP primary demolition derby. Once the candidate has been fixed the oligarchs will pour money into whoever’s campaign.
But my hypothesis is they cant pour enough money into mitts campaign to make him palatable to the GOP base.
there isnt enough money in the western world to make a mormon palatable to a die-hard evangelical.
Anya
@nancydarling: Where’s the FEMA reeducation camps when you need them.
ned
Is there any way we can get some sort of “Recruit El Cid as a Front Pager” movement going?
Too, am I the only one who thinks it’s gonna be a short primary because the Republicans are going to rally around Mittens in the interest of focusing on things like fundraising and ratfucking? I mean, it’s kinda obvious he’s going to be the one to make the concession speech in ’12 anyway, right? Surely the “adults” on Right realize this?
Grumpy Code Monkey
I think it’s possible that Mitt won’t be the nominee, but a whole lot of things have to fall into the right place at the right time. Gov. Goodhair is fading, and there’s almost no way Cain is going to carry this enthusiasm past the first round of primaries.
Romney’s numbers aren’t going up, but they aren’t going down, either.
What’s going to matter is who the also-rans decide to support. If Cain pops an aneurysm and decides to endorse Goodhair, for example, how will that play?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@salvador dalai llama: They have the Citizens United Decision. They never have to worry about money ever again.
Samara Morgan
@Anya: this is the same argument i had with suzanne over christies FAT. it doesnt matter what you think or what i think.
it matters what the GOP base thinks and votes. christie is unelectable because he’s OBESE.
Romney is unelectable because he’s a MORMON.
fester
@arguingwithsignposts: Oh yeah, that is why Iowa was right after New Years Day in 2008, there was a lot of mutual leap-frog going on last cycle, and it just accelerated this cycle.
Samara Morgan
@ned: he definitely should be a frontpager.
He’s a JAFI like Anne Laurie.
Ash Can
@Grumpy Code Monkey: I sat up and took notice of the reports of the biggest-money guys wooing Christie. Since that didn’t pan out, I’m back to predicting that Romney will back into the nomination like McCain did, choose a circus freak for a running mate like McCain did, and get trounced, probably worse than McCain did. And if I’m wrong and one of the circus freaks actually gets the nomination him/herself, I’ll be both surprised and delighted.
Lol
This time four years ago, McCain had no chance to win and bloggers were writing Obama’s obit. Don’t write Perry off just yet. The caucuses aren’t for an eternity.
Ash Can
@Lol: Good point. I’m not holding my breath regarding the results, but I am eager for the start of the primaries, since I do believe they hold great entertainment potential.
Trurl
Congratulations to Team Hope for having such a rich lode of suckers to mine.
All that money will buy lots of TV ads in which the President can boast about his record on the economy. (You know… the issue most important to voters in 2012.)
He is going to boast about his record on the economy, isn’t he?
Samara Morgan
@Ash Can:
and entertained.
General Stuck
@Lol:
Yup, and a big chunk of those currently supporting Cain, are natural Perry voters right now with Cain for who knows what reasons, but suspected not because they want Cain for the actual nomination. Perry, from what I hear, has a crack campaign staff and he is a good campaigner away from debates, so we shall see. If Perry gets his shit together, these folks will likely vote for him, and if not, hold their nose and vote for Romney.
Samara Morgan
@Trurl: it doesnt matter as long as the GOP cant field a candidate that unifies the base.
Distributed Jesusland needs +65 % of the white vote to beat Obama.
amk
@Trurl: oh don’t worry. prezinent perry will pray and will rain a boat-load of jobs for ya. Keep praying, firebagger.
Mino
@nancydarling: Was Bluto educated in Texas?
CarolDuhart
@Lol: Looks like January, and Romney is a retread. However, I agree with the “backed into the nomination” meme. This is Romney’s second time around, and if he has to dig into his fortune to win the nomination, he will do that. Perry had better be prepared to out-raise and out-spend him.
Samara Morgan
@Trurl:
Captain Howdy
This analysis ignores a central truth: Whoever is the last douche standing on Republican Island will have a ginormous surge of ka-ching when the losers and their voters throw their support to the winner. It’s not like Romney or whoever is going to have to raise $150 mill or more from the get-go just to catch up; a lot of $$ will appear on its own.
MikeJ
@Mino: IIRC, Animal House was loosely based on a frat at Dartmouth, but I don’t think they ever specified in the movie itself.
General Stuck
The wingnuts have a fickle, yet crucial voting block they have to get to the polls to win. And that is the Evangelicals that are notorious for staying home unless there is a jeebus approved born again type at the top of the Gooper ticket.
These folks only consider themselves citizens of the Gawd Kingdom , and secondly citizens of any country that they live and make a living in. Romney poses a big problem as the nominee, at least with these folks lending their votes, and quite a few votes at that.
Trurl
We all know it’s going to be Romney. And we all know that the Republicans will hold their noses and vote for him – just like all the Democrats held their noses and voted for Kerry.
The difference between then and now is that then independents weren’t going to the polls in a landscape of permanent 16% real unemployment.
Not to worry. Obama will do just fine after he’s fired from his job. The rest of you suckers may not be as lucky.
handsmile
With their ardor having cooled (Mitch Daniels, Rick Perry) or rebuffed (Chris Christie), the Village media has now anointed Mittens as the inevitable 2012 GOP presidential candidate.
Of course, from their palaces on the Potomac and Hudson, these courtier scribes don’t seem to understand that the peasants electorally responsible for that selection (the majority of GOP primary voters) can’t stand the Mormon former Governor of Massachusetts.
Romney’s national polling numbers have been locked in the lower 20% for several months now. Moreover, the only coherent explanation for Herman Cain’s current lead in certain polls is that it registers an implacable anti-Romney sentiment.
Thus, one of the most truly interesting narratives of the 2012 presidential campaign (391 days to go!) has yet to unfold. Either the corporate media will begin to report substantively and analyze cogently on Romney’s unpopularity; or they will address how the GOP base can be won over to support a candidate who now appears loathsome. “Obama Derangement Syndrome” might be a clue to the latter circumstance, as would, I believe, a Romney/Perry presidential ticket.
CarolDuhart
Sure, but Obama is going to have a head start, and neither of them are going to have the GOTV army Obama does. Plus, it’s better to raise money now and have the time to make strategic decisions about how to spend it than to have a sudden flood and little time to allocate resources properly. That situation was the one that Kerry faced in 2004. He raised lots, but there wasn’t the time to spend it strategically or to use it to build infrastructure.
Kola Noscopy
Otards are cute.
Are we officially pretending we don’t know that Barack Obama in the 2008 cycle raked in more Wall Street campaign cash than any other politician in the last 20 years?
Are officially pretending that fact and his administration’s performance vis a vis the lack of Wall St. investigations/prosecutions are unrelated?
hahahahahaha…
nancydarling
@General Stuck:
@Trurl:
I don’t think Romney is going to be an easy sell with the xtian righties in the south and not just because of his religion. See my post @57.
amk
@Kola Noscopy: plenty of butthurt today huh ?
NonyNony
@ned:
There are still “adults” on the Right?
I think most of the “adults” on the Right are hoping for Romney. And, if the base won’t give them Romney, they’ll let the base pick someone. And then they’ll passively sabotage that person to ensure that 2016 will be competitive again for their anointed candidate.
The elites on the Republican side have to be worried that they’ve lost control of the ship. If they let the crazies steer it into a iceberg they might be able to salvage the wreckage. If they can’t put their captain in charge they can at least step back and let the nutters take the blame for the upcoming collision.
salvador dalai llama
@Samara Morgan: You don’t have to tell me about evangelicals. I live in Tennessee. You’re spot-on about that. Sometimes I think we put the T in Tea Party. Romney would probably carry the state, but he won’t generate any enthusiasm here.
Cain would make some heads explode. “Well, hell. Do ah vote for the black Republican, or the half-black Democrat? Uh….”
“Sir, you need to remove your hood so we can check your photo ID.”
But the main thing we have to worry about around here is keeping our drunk-driving lawmakers from shooting at us going down the road…
salvador dalai llama
@NonyNony: That’s what David Frum has been doing for a while now. Trying to herd at least some of conservatism on an ark.
jwb
@JPL: I don’t think this is true. Some, even most will vote for Romney in the general to be sure; but enough will remain on the sidelines that it will make Romney’s road harder. That’s why if he’s the nominee, he’s likely to choose someone with impeccable evangelical credentials for his VP. I think the plan all along has been that it will be Perry. Perry, however, has been doing a marvelous job in alienating that native constituency, so I’m no longer convinced that he has the power to pull the evangelicals along. It’s an interesting quandary for Romney.
On the other hand, Romney still has to show that he can garner general support in the GOP. Support for all of the candidates except Romney and Paul seems to be extremely fluid, but the support that moves around really, really, really doesn’t want to settle on Romney. That leaves him very vulnerable to whichever of the other candidates is the last one standing. Really, at this point, I wouldn’t count any of them out except Huntsman.
Kyle Hitler
@Anya: way to shatter that stereotype of liberals being humorless, PC types who don’t even look after their own best interest. People like you make reading the comments section like that scene in Trainspotting where Ewan Macgregor dives into The Worst Toilet In Scotland to retrieve a half-used morphine suppository. As Daniel Tosh says, when my dad can tell me that the history of a religion is false because he was there when it happened, you don’t have to take it seriously.
Tons of individual Mormons are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. Their church structure, like the Southern Baptist types, is another matter. It is a disease that needs to be cleansed with fire.
Wait, are you some kind of meta-humor, like PeanutFreeMom?
Bill Murray
@jayackroyd: It’s a little unclear how many donors there are from the linked article
So I think 980,000+ is the total different donors for the entire campaign, and in the quarter just passed 98% of the donors gave an average of $56.
In a Politico article (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/65845.html) about this they quote something (probably Messina’s email)
so about 60% of the total Obama campaign ($42.8 million) and DNC ($27.8) contributions came from the small donations. The average donation of the 2% of large scale donors was a little over $1800. What we don’t know is the division of the donations between the Obama campaign and the DNC
The fake fake al
All the underhanded crap that goes on with the GOP, from the Koch brothers, to stacking Carolina State legislature (see New Yorker or Fresh Air), all any reasonable person can do is stay informed, give some $$$ and give some time. I have never worked on any campaign in my life, until now.
david mizner
No, this is wrong, I think.
“98% of that was from donors giving less than $250.”
98 percent of the donors gave less than 250. The amount they gave accounts for much less than 98 percent of the haul.
soonergrunt
@amk: That’s its default mode, so everything’s normal for it, right?
jwb
@General Stuck: If you look at the crosstabs, they don’t actually poll all that well. Many of their supporters simply don’t believe (or don’t realize) that the GOP stands for what the GOP in fact stands for. There is a lot of homerism, cheering for the tribe, confirmation bias, whatever you want to call it that blinds folks from seeing what’s right there in front of their face. Reality has a way of correcting these things over time, but the question remains as to whether there is enough time for reality to do its work. If the country can muddle through to 2020, time and reality will do its trick and allow the self-correction to do its work, but there are a lot of potential dangers along the way that can derail the process. And of course the social challenges get harder the longer they go unaddressed, so it would be better to be able to work at these things sooner rather than later…
Tom
I normally just lurk but I guess I want to know when the shadowy groups with Left leaning money go after Romney to push evangelicals to Perry.
Cue ominous music. “Where was Mitt Romney when his county needed him to fight Communism in Vietnam? He was converting Christians to Mormonism–while speaking French.” Then show Perry in a flight suit.
kindness
Help me out on this one. Why is Obama going after a portion of his base? Today I read that a U.S. attorney in Southern California says she is preparing to go after newspapers, radio stations and other media outlets that advertise medical marijuana dispensaries.
I mean, WTF is up with this shit? Does someone in Obama HQ think they can get the Independent and disaffected liberal Republican (all 2 of them) vote by going after legal pot? I am truly saddened. Makes me think FDL isn’t so wrong about some stuff.
And, oh yea@Kola Noscopy: Troll. Still.
amused
@kindness: I recently saw a Frontline about the CA pot biz, and it’s a convoluted mess. They’re not doing rec users any favors by blatantly going against the feds with their “legal” and illegal trafficking. If you think you’ll get anything of value out of FDL on this issue, or any, get help immediately!
kay
It’s a good point.
People can really look in excruciating detail at (individual) campaign donations.
Cat Lady
@Tom:
Awesome! The ad should make clear that he doesn’t wear any magic underwear under that flight suit either to appeal to the two wetsuits and a dildo crowd. Also.
rikryah
YEAH for the POTUS.
I thought the little donor was abandoning him?
Nellcote
@arguingwithsignposts:
You’ve forgotten about the Florida/Michigan freakout by the Clinton people in 08 where the states lost half their delegates because they went early.
Nellcote
Maybe they count each individual donation rather than aggregate for each donor over the quarter.
Tom
@Cat Lady: Green Balloons
kindness
@amused:
I guess that makes you an expert, huh? I read your post several times to figure out what you meant. Still not sure but it seems you are saying the Medical Marijuana outlets are going after the Feds. That makes no sense.
I am a cardholder here in Ca. The Clubs are highly regulated in N. Cal. They all follow the rules. If you are suggesting Medical Marijuana is terrible, well a large majority of California citizens disagrees with you. My point being this is a subject that didn’t need to come up. It does a dis-service to President Obama’s re-election hopes because this is showing Obama as lying to people like myself. What’s worse is Obama seems to be gambling with me. He figures I won’t stop supporting him because he’s going after Medical Marijuana after having promised he wouldn’t. He’s wrong there & I’m not alone.
Myself, it shouldn’t be a Schedule 1 drug at all. It should be regulated & taxed just like alcohol.
Jesse Levine
If your “primary” sarcasm relates to people understanding that Obama at his worst is better than any GOPer, it’s a valid point. If you think it’s an endorsement of his current policies, you’re wrong. The purpose of a primary is to influence his policy direction. Obama’s victory in ’12 is important in the short term, but self defeating for liberals in the long term if he is just going to govern like what used to be known as moderate Republican. Remember it was Clinton’s economic team that worked with the GOP to create this disaster, and that’s who Obama picked. And he also picked much of Bush’s”national security” apparatus to continue ourendless wars. The country is still headed in the wrong direction in these areas, and Obama has been an enabler. That has to change.
Jesse Levine
If your “primary” sarcasm relates to people understanding that Obama at his worst is better than any GOPer, it’s a valid point. If you think it’s an endorsement of his current policies, you’re wrong. The purpose of a primary is to influence his policy direction. Obama’s victory in ’12 is important in the short term, but self defeating for liberals in the long term if he is just going to govern like what used to be known as moderate Republican. Remember it was Clinton’s economic team that worked with the GOP to create this disaster, and that’s who Obama picked. And he also picked much of Bush’s”national security” apparatus to continue ourendless wars. The country is still headed in the wrong direction in these areas, and Obama has been an enabler. That has to change.
Turgidson
@Samara Morgan:
The GOP has been hard at work disenfranchising as many of the non-white and young voters as they possibly can, so that pool might actually be smaller in 2012 than 2008. We’ll see.
A Conservative Teacher
Glad to see that Obama is hard at work meeting with Iran regarding terrorist plots, or visiting China to talk about trade policies, or in the White House reading economic theory and pouring over the numbers and details of the policies he supports… oh wait, instead he is out golfing, raising campaign funds, and vacationing. He is not a good President.
kindness
@A Conservative Teacher: Troll.
Get a job hippie.
smintheus
Odd thing, the last time a president ran for re-election (Bush, 2004) we heard almost nothing in the media about his problems within his own party. Even after his early primary results turned out to be astoundingly weak – Bush got only 78% of the vote in the 2004 NH primary – we still heard not a peep about Republican dissatisfaction with him.
But we hear semi-frequently now that Obama, with higher levels of support among Democrats than Bush had in his party, is facing a crisis. Funny how that works out.
amused
@kindness: I’m talking about that Oakland official who decided to go against the law and try to grow pot “legally” so he could get taxes from the sale. And the black marketers in the hills who use that as an excuse to grow and sell across state lines. Of course, the feds are going to come in. And I’m all for the back door avenue of “medical mj” as a way to it becoming legal. No one I know with a card has a medical condition in my area, and more power to them. Thinking there’s going to be no fed pushback is just stupid. Thinking Obama should hold back on this issue because it might make his re-election chances worse is pretty hypocritical for people who whine about rule of law on other issues.
amk
@A Conservative Teacher: yeah, if only Obama had a fake ranch to clear the brush and then fall down while doing it. When are you rw trolls ever going to develop a brain? You guys disprove the theory of evolution.
Turgidson
Waaaaait a minute….
amk
@Turgidson: yeah, I know. ;)
kindness
@amused: So which is it, do you support people being able to obtain cannabis via Medical Marijuana or don’t you?
You say you do support it but then spend you whole post dissing the patients, the growers and the clubs. And in all honesty if the City of Oakland had approved the grow operation (they didn’t) I would really like to see the Feds bust a City. That plus it would have wiped out their deficit.
With friends like you, wtf do I need the Teahaddists for?
You convienently ignore the point of my post. This is a battle Obama didn’t need to pick up, especially before what will be a very close election.
cat48
@A Conservative Teacher:
amused
@kindness: spend you whole post dissing the patients, the growers and the clubs.
No, I didn’t.
I would really like to see the Feds bust a City.
So, in this case, you approve of breaking fed law? Interesting.
With friends like you
I’m not your friend, sweetie.
wtf do I need the Teahaddists for?
To make you feel better about yourself? As a non-friend, I have no idea what motivates you. (well, besides pot)
You convienently ignore the point of my post.
No, I didn’t. You thought Obama should stop following the law because it might lose him a few votes from unreliable youth, and I thought it was funny that you’re so flexible on when the law should be applied. Hypocrisy’s funny no matter who does it.
Bob
Maybe pointed out above but it’s just as fast to write this as to read all the comments…
Slight major difference here:
From the post:
From the NYT article:
We can even do the math: (98% of 980,000)*56=53.7 million.
A significant difference there, no? That leaves 16.2 mil, presumably the “big money”. So 53.7/70=77% of the money was from small donors giving $250 or less, rather than 98%. I don’t know if that’s “good” or “bad”. Call me Goldilocks but it seems about right.
Jenny
@mikefromArlington:
This!
I just love how this drives the Firebaggers and PUMAs nuts.
I love it so much, I just made, yet another, contribution!
Woooooo Ho0000000!