Obama’s big donors

Remember all that hype about small donors giving $20 on the Internet? Forget it:

Nearly 100 wealthy families and power couples contributed at least $100,000 each to help Barack Obama over the past two years, creating an elite set of donors to whom the president-elect repeatedly turned in financing his campaign, transition and inauguration, a Washington Post analysis shows. . . .
The families gave to as many as five committees, records show, and 27 of the 94 families also bundled money from others, collecting millions of dollars on top of their personal donations.
Among the supporters were well-known families such as the Rockefellers, as well as lesser-known backers such as New Yorker Frank Brosens, a leader in the hedge fund industry, who raised $500,000 for Obama’s campaign and inauguration in addition to the $182,000 he gave with his wife, parents and three sons.
High-profile donors include Hollywood director Steven Spielberg and his wife, actress Kate Capshaw, who gave $163,900. . . .
Twelve members of the Rockefeller extended family gave a total of $316,000. Hotel magnate and former Maryland lawmaker Stewart Bainum Jr. and 13 members of his family gave $236,000.

Remember this, the next time someone tries to tell you Republicans are “the party of the rich.”

UPDATE: Ann Althouse:

Now, should we be upset, and if we are, what are we upset about and is it not poetic justice that John McCain came out the loser?

Hey: Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Bob Barr!

Democrats: Party of the rich

Barack Obama’s campaign raised somewhere north of $640 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The latest available figures are only through Oct. 15, and it’s likely the final total will be nearly $700 million. By comparison, John McCain’s campaign raised $370 million, and as the CRP notes:

Because McCain opted into the public financing system during the general election, he faced an $84 million limit on what he could spend, putting him at a huge disadvantage compared to Obama, who raised $66 million more than that in September alone.

Just in case you’re wondering, the Republican National Committee’s expenditures could not have possibly made up the gap between McCain’s $84 million and Obama’s fundraising, which was about $150 million in September alone. The RNC raised only $336 million in the entire 2-year cycle.

If you think about it, the Obama campaign was the biggest growth industry in America over the past two years. Not all of the campaign’s expenditures have been fully itemized, but they spent more than $160 million on TV ads.

In discussions of “what went wrong” for the GOP this year, the Democrats’ massive financial advantage in the 2008 cycle has to be taken into account.

(Cross-posted at AmSpecBlog.)

They really are desperate

John McCormack calls it the most implausible Palin smear yet, and it is rather odd:

The day of the third debate, Palin refused to go onstage with New Hampshire GOP Sen. John Sununu and Jeb Bradley, a New Hampshire congressman running for the Senate, because they were pro-choice and because Bradley opposed drilling in Alaska. The McCain campaign ordered her onstage at the next campaign stop, but she refused to acknowledge the two Republican candidates standing behind her.

As McCormack points out, Bradley’s opposition to ANWR drilling is the same is Joh McCain’s opposition to ANWR drilling, and Sununu has a 100% right-to-life voting record, so that doesn’t make sense at all.

On the other hand, now that I think about it, I don’t remember Palin putting in plugs for local Republican officials when I saw her in Ohio and Pennsylvania. This routine of name-checking local officials at the beginning of a speech is essential to the presidential campaign business. (You remember Joe Biden’s infamous “stand up, Chuck” moment with Missouri state Sen. Chuck Graham.) And if Palin were indeed averse to that sort of political routine, it might lend credibility to this tidbit in the Newsweek story:

“McCain’s advisers had been frustrated when Palin refused to talk to donors because she found it corrupting . . .”

Here, now, is a charge that would be gravely serious, if true. Political campaigns and political parties live or die by fundraising, and schmoozing donors is a basic function of what candidates do.

The candidate is handed a list of names and numbers with a bit of biographical information about each, and the amount of their previous donations, and he picks up the phone and starts “dialing for dollars” as it is called. And then, out on the trail, at each rally, there is a private VIP reception where the top local donors are rewarded with face-time and a chance for a grip-and-grin photo with the candidate.

This is the inescapable reality of politics, and the best politicians tend to excel at this kind of stuff. Over the course of time, these kind of personal contacts add up to a solid base of support. Bill Clinton famously built his political career in Arkansas by compiling a file of 5″x7″ cards with donor/supporter information.

Surely, Palin has not succeeded in politics without knowing how important it is to do all this, but if — as the implausible Newsweek story asserts — she didn’t know it, somebody had better wise her up in a hurry. She will be (or at least, ought to be) the No. 1 attraction at Republican fundraising events in 2009, an eviable opportunity to build her base of support among GOP bigwigs, and she needs to make the most of it.

Obama buries McCain in ads

According to Neilsen, measuring “ad units”:

• Ohio: Obama 13,289; McCain 5,606
• Pennsylvania: Obama 9,546; McCain 4,740
• Florida: Obama 15,887; McCain 4,662

It is pointless for Republicans to bleat about media bias at a time when Obama is out-advertising McCain by more than 3-to-1 in Florida, and more than 2-to-1 in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Obama raised $150 million in September. That’s $5 million a day, which means that in the first 17 days of the month, Obama had raised $85 million — more than McCain received in federal matching funds to last him from Labor Day to Election Day. There is no Republican campaign “strategy” that could possibly overcome such a lopsided cash advantage by the Democrat.

Flaming skull at Ace’s

Whenever he pulls out the skull, you know it’s something big: Apparently, Team Obama disabled a verification feature in its online donation softway so that anyone (even “John Galt”) can give money anonymously, or rather pseudonymously, or at least without a verified name and address.

Hey, man, $5 million a day, what do they care if it comes from “DooDad Pro” and “asdfadfqrew”?

Biden: Losing the bigot vote?

Democrats say the darnedest things at San Francisco fundraisers:

As Election Day looms just over two weeks away, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., said Saturday that with Republicans firing “vicious” and “dangerous” attacks at Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., voters are “having a difficult time” opting for the man who would become the nation’s first African American
president.
“Undecided people are having a difficult time just culturally making the change, making the move for the first African American president in the history of the United States of America,” the Democratic vice-presidential nominee said at a San Francisco fundraiser Saturday evening. “So we need to respond. We need to respond at the moment, immediately, not wait, not hang around, not assume any of this won’t stick.”

(Via Jack M. at AOSHQ.) The Obama campaign hoovered up $150 million last month, they’re outspending McCain as much as 4-to-1 in TV advertising, and Biden goes to San Francisco to whine, “Give us more money, because undecided voters are a bunch of racist crackers.”

Obama: $150 million in September

Crushing:

The Obama campaign announced this morning that it had raised a record $150 million last month, and had added 632,000 new donors to its total.
The amount shattered the campaign’s previous record from August. The McCain campaign also had a record-breaking month in August, but is now operating with the $84 million provided by public financing for the general cycle and assistance from the Republican National Committee under certain limits.

In a single month, then, Obama collects nearly twice what the McCain campaign collected in matching funds.

According to the New York Times, the Obama campaign has spent $145 million on TV advertising to McCain’s $90 million — a $55 million advantage for the Democrat.

The $11 Million Victim

Obama goes to Hollywood, raises a record $11 million and plays the victim:

“A lot of people have gotten nervous and concerned. Why is this as close as it is? And what’s going on?” Mr. Obama said, speaking to about 300 people over dinner at the Greystone Mansion. “We always knew this was going to be hard — this is a leap for the American people.”

Oh, it’s so hard to get elected when you’re raising $66 million a month and the major media are completely in the tank for you. It’s so hard when you’re on the cover of Time magazine seven times in one year. It’s so hard when Us Weekly is doing such vicious investigative journalism about you.

It’s so hard when you get a sweetheart book deal at age 27. It’s so hard when you’re appointed to the board of a $49 million education reform project at age 34. It’s so hard when the Chicago Tribune goes to court to have your Republican opponent’s divorce records made public, so he’s forced to drop out and you get a free ride into the U.S. Senate.

Maybe those rich Hollywood friends of yours are buying into this victimhood tale, buddy, but I think the ordinary American voter is gagging from the odor of rancid self-pity.

UPDATE: And, as notorious hatemonger Michelle Malkin points out, Obama’s not only a victim, he’s a half-black victim. Why does this make Michelle a notorious hatemonger? Because only liberals like Jack Cafferty are allowed to obsess over Obama’s race:

Shorter Jack Cafferty: “We know you racist crackers won’t vote for a black man, which means it’s time to do our umpteenth special segment pointing out that Obama is, in fact, a black man.”

Beverly Hills Obama

Here’s what you get for $11 million:

RNC beats DNC 10-to-1

Cash on hand totals:

• Republican National Committee: $75.2 million
• Democratic National Committee: $7.7 million

Team Obama’s sucking up all the liberal money, and when he spends it, it’s gone. And a lot of overhead is involved in fundraising, so much of what liberal donors are paying for is for Obama to hire more fund-raising operatives.

Meanwhile, Team Maverick is less than two weeks away from collecting — in a single lump-sum payment — $84 million in public financing. By then, there will be barely eight weeks remaining to spend the whole amount, which means the McCain campaign will be operating on a budget of $10 million a week, even while the RNC still has another $75 million to play around with.

All in all, you’re going to see more than $20 million a week of coordinated Republican activity from Labor Day through Nov. 4. So much for McCain-Feingold as way to “get the big money out of politics.”