Ground Up

A story from the New York Times explains Obama's fundraising campaign philosophy as a grass-roots, bottoms up campaign. I agree, and think it it very note-worthy that only individual contributions have been accepted, keeping PACs from buying his vote. Below is a synopsis of the story.

Two and a half years after he had taken quite a “spanking,” as he put it, in his bid to unseat an incumbent congressman, he was still struggling to pay off a $20,000 debt, eking out donations of $1,000 here, $2,000 there. His fund-raising prowess has helped make him the chief rival to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Interviews and campaign finance reports show Obama drew crucial early support from Chicago’s thriving black professional class, using it as a springboard to other rainmakers within the broader party establishment. Soon he was drawing money — and, just as valuable, buzz — among wealthy Chicago families, as well as friends from Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago.

Obama appears to have such a firm hold on so many of Chicago’s big donors that Clinton, who grew up in a Chicago suburb, did not even have a fund-raiser here during the crucial first quarter of this year. Obama’s campaign says its grass-roots support is expanding rapidly, in part through $25-a-ticket fund-raisers designed for a new generation of donors.

I have been asked what it is that people see in Obama, and I think this is a good summary from the New York Times:

Even as he cultivated an image as an unconventional candidate devoted to the people, not the establishment, he systematically built a sophisticated, and in many ways quite conventional, money machine.