The Washington Post reports today that the Obama campaign juggernaut is sputtering. It’s having trouble bringing in the high dollar donors.
President Obama is struggling to draw in big-dollar donations, with half as many people writing large checks to his campaign than at this point four years ago.
Obama is outpacing his Republican rivals in fundraising overall, and his advisers have concentrated on amassing small-dollar backers, part of a strategy to get more people invested in the reelection effort. At the end of January, 1.4 million people had donated to the Obama campaign, responding to appeals for contributions as small as $2.
That small donor number is interesting. The Obama campaign has waged an email campaign of, essentially, raffling the married President of the United States off for dinner and a date over the past several months. There is some method to the madness, in that the barrier for entry is low enough that just about anyone can afford to buy a ticket and believe that they’re playing. The campaign can build up an email list from these donors, which it can and will tap for more money along the way. But it takes a whole lot of lottery suckers to make up for one defection at the high dollar end, and Obama has suffered a high number of high dollar defectors.
But Obama lags behind Republican front-runner Mitt Romney in finding donors willing to give $2,000 or more — a surprising development for a sitting president, and one that could signal more worrisome financial problems heading into the general election. At this point in the last election cycle, Obama had received such large donations from more than 23,000 supporters, more than double the 11,000 who have given him that much this time. President George W. Bush had more than four times that number of big donations at this point in his reelection.
It’s not all that surprising. Obama has waged war on the wealthy. His policies are openly geared toward redistribution rather than creation of wealth. Re-electing him promises nothing so much as more irresponsible spending, and more tax increases, for more of his redistribution. And higher energy prices.
The Post does its best to miss another relevant part of the story.
Whatever the reason, Obama appears to be redoubling his efforts to extract bigger contributions from his support base. He has stepped up his fundraising events in recent weeks, taking swings through several different regions for more than 40 events in 2012. On Friday, the president did five events in two states with an expected haul of at least $5.5 million.
The campaign typically holds three or more events with different donation levels in one evening, part of a strategy to make Obama available to different types of people. The biggest event Friday featured singer Cee Lo Green at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta. Tickets were $500 with a $2,500 donation for VIP access and a $10,000 donation for a photo with the president.
Mention Cee Lo Green, but not the singer’s profane antics at the fundraiser? While the president is allegedly on another “civility” kick? Maybe the Post is just blissfully unaware of Obama’s rank hypocrisy, but millions of voters aren’t.
The Obama campaign will still go into the general election with a money edge over the GOP nominee, mainly because he has not had to burn up as much money in the Democrats’ uncontested primary. But the advantage probably won’t be as large as Obama anticipated or needed. The RNC under Reince Priebus is outraising the DNC under Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, whose loudmouth media antics may also be turning donors off. And the GOP super PACs will probably outraise the Democrats’ counterparts.
This isn’t to say that Obama is broke. But he won’t be the billion dollar president, and as a result of pulling in fumes lately, he’s likely to spend even more of his time trying to hit the same reluctant donors over and over again.
This is, predictably, all Bush’s fault.
Don’t forget, whatever he gets in the form of traditional campaign donations will be amplified by his ability to use U.S. government resources (e.g. aircraft, public statements by various officials, etc.) that his campaign will be able to avoid paying for.
He also has a trillion dollars is taxed/borrowed funds to route to his cronies to ‘stimulate’ donations.
Oh, and the news and entertainment media.
Obama has already reditributed the wealth of America right into his own supoorters pockets. By the time he leaves office there will be no more money to be had and then he will be left to destroy our rights as free people. Union members have been milking the unemployment as a their right of passage for the votes they trun out on behalf of Obama. Union members who are on unemployment do not even have to look for other work as is required by most states to recieve unemployment, all they have to do is write their union badge number each and every week. So while the big dogs get big dog money, rank and file only get scraps. So tell me why they cannot wake up and see coffee? And those who are on welfare only get a few bucks while Obama seeks donations from the elite and promises a 100% return on their money.
The flip side of this story is that Mitt Romney has been unable to attract small donors, the lifeblood of a campaign. The problem here is that big donors are a more finite resource. When will Romney tap out?
I think that Romney will pick up the smaller donors if he clinches the nomination. After all, for a lot of us this race is less about electing any given Republican than it is about defeating Obama. When one looks at it that way, it’s only logical that people with less money to spend may want the biggest bang for their buck.
Personally, I’m keeping my powder dry for the time when I think it’ll be used against the right opponent and not another Republican.
Me, too, Dana.
According to Rove, the Obama campaign has high built-in costs so it is burning through cash even now.
Yeah, well, Romney is burning through his money, too, trying to put away these weak sister opponents. I mean, these schlubs cannot even get on the ballot in every county, even where they are popular.
The general election might end up being all tail and no tooth.
Bottom line: with Barry, less really is more.
One interesting side effect of many small donors is the average contribution goes down. The more $2 contributions Obama gets, the more $38000 dinners he can have without appearing to be getting fat cats.