OK, they write for No Quarter which automatically makes them a moron, but look at this:
If 49% of Obama’s total campaign funds came from small donors ($200 or less), then 51% of his funds came from big donors ($201 or more). Thus, an actual majority of Obama’s campaign cash was generated from big donors.
That’s a vastly different picture than the 93% that some skim readers might misinterpret as Obama’s small-donor percentage.
OK, let’s break this down. First, I’m not sure I would consider doating $201 to be a “big donor,” but whatever, I’ll go with their definition of that for the time being.
To put this in context, Obama’s campaign finance reports say that 93% of their contributions came from small contributions – meaning that 93% of contributions to their campaign were of $200 or less. No Quarter believes that Obama is phrasing it like this to say that 93% of his contributions are from “small donors” while in fact, a majority (51%) of is contributors have given over $200, and thus Obama is some how a king of big donors or something.
However, this post is missing something critical: Obama has been running for President for 16 months – it will be 17 months in about two weeks. If someone gave $12.56 a month, every month, to Obama’s campaign, they would now be a “big donor” according to No Quarter’s standards.
While that may be technically true, it’s hard to argue that you can portray people giving $15 or $20 or $50 a month to Obama on the same scale as those who have given hundreds or even thousands of dollars to his campaign.
Look, I’m hardly rich. I’m paying off school loans, a car loan, credit cards, and rent, and I could probably afford $50 a month between now and the election. I could give $250 between now and then at that rate, making me one of those evil “big donors” when I’m anything but.
In fact, the article makes all of these points, and uses them to blow off the 93% small contributions stat. However, I think the opposite conclusion should be reached.
That’s why I think the statistic about small donations vs. number of people who have given $200 total is significant in that it shows that Obama has a quite significant number of supporters who may not be able to write him a $500 check, but who is able to send off $20 or $50 every month, an will continue to do so.
Even if they have given, on total, over $200 to Obama, that shouldn’t minimize the fact that they are lower or middle class Americans who still give donations out in smaller amounts – people who may not be technically “small donors” any more, but who are still, at heart, small donors.
And that’s why I think the 93% stat is important because it shows how many traditional small donors are giving to his campaign, even if some of them have technically become “big donors” because of how much they’ve donated over time.
