Numbers Game

Yesterday the Federal Election Committee finishing counting and double-counting the amount raised by Obama in the first quarter, and it was even more than originally reported. His campaign raised more than $25 million, and the original 100,000 donors was actually 104,000. Yet his campaign touts that the real story is the amount of giving in the two weeks since the end of the first quarter. Since that time, more than 18,400 donors have given, and 90 percent of those are for the first time.

An e-mail from his campaign had this to say:

With the news of our historic start, the Washington chattering class is nervous. Those invested in the status quo have a hard time grasping that a movement made up of people who want a new kind of politics can actually change things. Now's the time for every person who supports Barack Obama to make one thing perfectly clear: we're here, we're serious about change, and we're going to be heard.

And with the up-swing in donating, continues an increase in online support. Of the 18,000 donors, 15,000 gave online!

Recognizing that the support of women is also crucial to meet the numbers, Obama officially launched an initiative aimed at women today during a Women for Obama luncheon, where he raised $750,000 and once again made a statement by intruding on "Hillary's turf." And over the weekend he rallied in Atlanta and South Carolina. The Atlanta rally drew 20,000 supporters, more than have ever attended one rally in the city's history. And he entered Edwards turf in the Carolinas. All bets are off in Obama's campaign, proving that he really does a fresh way of doing things.

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.