Growing Internet Use Helps Obama to a Wide Base and a Money Lead

Washington Post ^ | July 16, 2007 | Jose Antonio Vargas

[CheyennePress]

A few weeks ago, Linnie Frank Bailey, a 51-year-old self-described "older soccer mom" in Corona, Calif., and Isaac Burbank, a 20-year-old mechanical engineering student at Colorado State University, both did something for the first time.

They gave money to a political campaign -- $10 each to Sen. Barack Obama -- and they gave it over the Internet.

About a third of the money Sen. Barack Obama raised in his record-setting haul of $32.8 million in the second quarter of this year came from donations made on the Internet, his campaign said.

The Illinois Democrat's second-quarter fundraising haul of $32.8 million far outpaced the rest of the presidential field, including his chief Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. About a third of it -- $10.3 million -- came over the Internet, according to the Obama campaign, and 90 percent of the online donations were under $100. Half were $25 or less.

The number of small donors gives Obama an unusually large fundraising base. The 258,000 donors who have given to his campaign this year are more than the combined total who have given to three of the leading Republican candidates: former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). Clinton, who raised $27 million in the second quarter and leads most Democratic polls, has yet to release her number of donors.

[CheyennePress]

All one has to do is visit YouTube to see what's happening. The internet has been a bankload for Democrats and not quite as friendly to conservatives. Granted, I say this on a site like FreeRepublic, but I think it goes without saying that conservatives are a bit disadvantaged in most arenas on the internet superhighway, at least today.

And McCain-Feingold has just made things worse. No doubt about that. We used to hold huge advantages.

Kind of an interesting campaign ahead...

[bnelson44]

Young people like him but don’t have the slightest idea what his position on the issues are.

[OKIEDOC]

few weeks ago, Linnie Frank Bailey, a 51-year-old self-described “older soccer mom” in Corona, Calif., and Isaac Burbank, a 20-year-old mechanical engineering student at Colorado State University, both did something for the first time.
Courtesy comment:

Hog wash Linne Frank Baily, I know this stinking bastardoas.

Hishe only clue about life is that it wakes up each morning more dumbfounded than the day before.

Ole Baily ain’t the brightest bulb in the old electric socket in my lowly opinion.

As for Isaac Burbank, a 20-year-old mechanical engineering student at Colorado State University.

He is just the epitome of Stoopid Does School.

Both these two ignorant imbecilic clowns should be poster children for all the non thinkers of the world.

This is a Beer induced opinion.

[boop]

What a freakin’ assine article. She has an “Obama in ‘08” blog. And her donating $10 is NATIONAL news? The only “news” is why if she’s such a success she is such a bloody cheapskate.

[Old Flat Toad]

I gotta ask- How is this money being tracked? What prevents 300 million Chinese chat room infiltrators from donating a few bucks each through say Paypal or an untraceable equiv?

[CheyennePress]

You mean assinine?

The story here is that Obama is having massive support from American internet users, $10 at a time.

So much that he wiped the floor with the Democrat AND Republican competition. I’d consider that pretty monumental given the way that campaigns have been run in the past.