Posted on 12/05/2008 11:53:18 AM PST by weegee
...Obama reported raising $104 million in more than five weeks immediately before and after Election Day. It was his second biggest fundraising period and a fitting coda to a successful presidential bid that shattered fundraising records.
...Obama exceeded the combined finances of the two major parties' nominees four years ago. George W. Bush and John Kerry pulled in a total of $653 million in the 2004 primary and general election campaigns, including federal public financing money.
Obama's prowess at attracting money, one of the many characteristics that defined his campaign, could well spell the end of a 30-year experiment in public financing of presidential contests.
After initially vowing to take public funds if McCain did, Obama became the first presidential candidate since the campaign finance reforms of the 1970s to raise private donations during the general election.
The final numbers underscore how pivotal the two candidates' strategies were for funding their general election campaigns: McCain accepted $84 million in taxpayer money through the public financing system; Obama gambled that he could raise far more from private money...
The party committee couldn't escape one of its most awkward moments of the campaign. After spending nearly $150,000 on clothing and accessories for McCain's running mate Sarah Palin in September...
...But while Obama has made much of his large number of donors, the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute found that Obama collected about 26 percent of his total haul from people who gave less than $200 — about the same as President George W. Bush did in his 2004 campaign.
And like other campaigns, Obama's relied for nearly half of its fundraising on big donors, those who gave $1,000 or more, a finding that "should make one think twice before describing small donors as the financial engine of the Obama campaign," the institute reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Except, once he's in, it's hard to unseat a politician. I think the last president that ran for reelection, that didn't make it, was Herbert Hoover.
Of course, Truman and LBJ saw their polls slip and decided not to run, so I guess we can still hope.
Don’t remember Jimmmy? Or Boosh I?
Oops. How could I forget.
Kind of poetic Justice that McCain is outspent, and badly beaten (by contemporary standards) *after* the passage of McCain-Fiengold, which was all about getting "big money" out of politics.
Still, the delicious irony is not THAT delicious to be worth having the likes of B.H. Obama inflicted upon us.
Exactly! Notice how when Bush and the GOP raise tons of money, the liberal MSM decry it and say “get money out of politics”. When Osbama and democrats raise money, they sit and marvel at it and say how great a rainmaker he is. Its hypocrisy.
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