A new analysis of President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign fund-raising punctures one of the most enduring pieces of conventional wisdom from his presidential run — that small donors powered his record-breaking money machine.

[…]

The institute found that while nearly 50 percent of Mr. Obama’s donations came in individual contributions of $200 or less, in reality, only 26 percent of the money he collected through Aug. 31 during the primary and 24 percent of his money through Oct. 15 came from contributors whose total donations added up to $200 or less. The data is the most recent available.

Those figures are actually in the same range as the 25 percent President Bush raised in 2004 from donors whose contributions aggregated to $200 or less, the 20 percent Senator John F. Kerry collected from such donors and Senator John McCain’s 21 percent from the same group. Meanwhile, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton collected just 13 percent from such donors during her run but former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean brought in 38 percent of his donations from small donors fitting this description.

Obama’s Camp Cultivates Crop in Small Donors

Like other candidates, he has worked hard to cultivate a network of bundlers, who can solicit the checks from individual donors for the legal maximum of $2,300 that are the mainstay of any major campaign. But to capitalize on his celebrity, Mr. Obama’s campaign has also employed novel tactics — like counting sales of $5 speech tickets or $4.50 Obama key chains as individual contributions — to pump up his numbers and transform grass-roots enthusiasm into more useful forms of support. No other campaign is known to have listed paraphernalia sales as donations.

I was just rereading this post, and I wanted to ask you a question in regards to your following quote. “Of course, the actions of the White House betray quite a different intent. The deals they have negotiated with health care industry stakeholders do not include a public plan, they don’t believe they can back out of them without triggering a rush of lobbyist money to GOP coffers.”

Most every post I’ve read over the past several months concerning the real roadblock to the public option keeps coming back to this point. Obama raised nearly a half billion dollars on the campaign trail last year, and it was my impression that it was mostly from the grassroots (correct me if I’m wrong).

My question is how much money do Obama and Rahm think they need for the reelections (2010/2012), above and beyond what the grassroots can give (hell, we could raise a billion dollars from the grassroots alone if that’s what it took), that they’re willing to sell out the American people for corporate dollars, when they know that we will all know about the sellout come next election time? Health care corporations aren’t going to give Republicans a billion dollars.

And, in addition to that, given that the Republican Party is imploding, most likely all they’ll have for candidates to run against Democrats next time are ignorant buffoons.

Sorry for the disorganized rambling; it’s late and I’m tired.

not sure why you’re blaming this on nancy pelosi. it’s obama and orszag and many of his economic advisors who believe this.

Nancy is good for a laugh and that’s about all anymore.

Too bad on the numbers. Just keep sending up a bill with the P.O. and let the repubs vote it down. After 8 years of one clusterfuckup after another one, how many obstructionist “NO” votes do you think they can stand?

I think not many, and when the mid-terms get here, we can collect on that little bill, all over again.

http://www.dailykos.com/