$100K from students? That's unheard of before Obama, and really points to a breakthrough discovery by the Obama fudraising team-- well-to-do students with disposable income.

How do you know they are "well-to-do"?  And what concert have you been to where the crowd is exhorted to pony up $5 or $10 bucks in the middle of it?  What would be so wrong writing a piece that was absent the sarcastic digs?  It might actually read better and give people at least the impression you weren't airing a personal grudge.

Pols can be so out of touch sometimes.  Obama's comment, "...I don't care how poor you are, you've got $5" reminds me of when a pol doesn't have a clue about the price of bread or milk.

There are a lot of people who there who don't have a dime to spare, let alone a fiver for Obama's campaign.  There are people out that there that can't afford their meds or proper nutrition.

There are a variety of fundrasing tools that Obama is using. Why hasn't anyone mentioned the "Sacrificing Beer, Pizza for a Cause" campaign on College Campuses?

http://www.barackobama.com/2007/05/15/ob ama_taps_youth_to_help_make.php

There is a youtube of that moment when Obama asks his audience to "pony up" five or ten bucks.  He was not talking to affluent people; they were the very opposite.

I found it offensive.  And yes, this gives Obama high numbers of donors.  It might also explain why his poll numbers do not reflect his huge number of donors.

Thanks Jerome.  I knew if I posted a comment about this, it would be disputed by Obama supporters here, so I'm glad you put it out there.

I support Hillary, and I most certainly cannot imagine her asking her audiences to "pony up five bucks".

Obama's neoliberalism allows him to rake in the $$$ from rich donors, including people who were recently K-Street lobbyists will soon be again, lobbyists' spouses, and big corporate players who, let's just say, aren't drawn to him because of his inspiring life story. Meanwhile his ban on taking $$$ from PACs and federal lobbyists (much at odds with his K-Street whoring when he first got to DC) allows him to claim purity. And meanwhile his huge donor base--much of which, as Jerome suggests, is the softest of soft support--enables to claim he's running the greateast grassroots campaign in history. It's not top-down or bottom-up, it's both, but the media, by a large, will buy the grassroots narrative, and the more this story gets told, the more people think there's a huge movement, the more people want to be a part of it.

Just as Obama is selling the idea of hope, rather than a program that would actually provide hope, just as he's asking people to unite around the idea of unity, he's creating the perception of a movement. But Obama understands that in politics, as in life, perception has a way of becoming reality. If Obama keeps saying that his is a people-powered movement, and the press keeps buying it, then people will want to be a part of it.

And a good portion of these people who give a few dollars to Obama and see him speak will become true-blue supporters. I buy the buy-in idea, especially where there's a salesperson as skilled as Obama. Thousands upon thousands of people really dig the guy. I just had dinner with a pretty famous liberal journalist who told me that although he knows Edwards is more progressive, he's gonna vote for Obama cause he just digs him. He likes the way Obama makes him feel, and that's another thing that Obama understands: people like to feel good.

How much of that support is solid, and how much of that solid support will organize and vote, and how effective their organizing and voting will be compared to, say, the organizing and voting of, say, the union activists who will support Edwards are all open questions. My hunch is thay if Obama stays strong till the big states like California, where organizing is less important, he'll win, but that his meta-movement might not be able to prevail in the early primary states, where organizing and actually going to to the polls are everything.

Here is the video of Obama asking his audience to "pony up"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGxzqwRJU zM

"I don't care how poor you are" (Obama)

I find the nay saying rather amusing. (sigh) . We only have SIX more months to go till we start seeing the results of all the campaigning. We will see just who's "analysis" was correct and who was just spinning. We will see if voters that we seem to have no faith in come through in the end. We will see if the poll number are correct. We will see if all it takes is Iowa. Six more months. I'm still excited. I hope everyone else is.

Maybe I'm just another "moaning and groaning" Obama supporter, but Jerome's pattern of posting has now entered the world of the ridiculous.  Okay, he doesn't have to be objective and it's his blog.  But the fact that even an iota of fairness is out the window is something that, as commenters, we can at least point out.

Let's criticize Obama for having 250,000 donors.  How do we do that?  We attack him for selling tickets to his "concerts" (something, by the way, all candidates have been doing for years, including Jerome's ray of purity, John "Can-Do-No-Wrong" Edwards).  Hell, I paid to go see Kerry in 2004.  

So, it's soooo wrong that students for Obama sold to fellow students.  Well, did they tell them they were going to a Linkn Park concert and then, surprise!, it's an Obama fundraiser?  Are those other students mindless fools who didn't know what they were doing?  I worked in youth marketing for a few years, and college students these days are remarkably sophisticated and fickle, and won't pay for a thing unless they want to.

But despite the obvious points that there's no way to raise $32 million from 250,000 people by holding these "concerts" alone, what is the problem?   That passionate people are willing to pay to see a Democratic candidate?  Is your contention that they were bamboozled into paying to see Obama?  Or that there's some problem with it?

Question for Jerome: is John Edwards' fund-raising pure?  Could there be anything remotely "concern-worthy" about what he's doing?  How many of these posts have you put up about him?  

Look, Obama isn't perfect, and I'm still evaluating the field (though leaning in his direction).  But to see a prominent blogger supposedly committed to a reality-based world continually post these "concerned" posts about Obama and slavishly uncritical posts about Edwards is getting preposterous.  

Obama can't be doing everything wrong.  How about a post that says, "like him or not, it's a great thing to have so many passionate people supporting a Democratic candidate."

What's wrong with poor people feeling invested in change?  Yes, Jerome, $5 for a piece of empowerment and participation in the democratic process is worth, well, at least a couple of welfare checks - especially as a longer, termed investment.

Or maybe the poor should keep thinking that they're better "kept" by those who currently hold the power.

This isn't directed specifically at baby boomer Obama because I don't know if he's a millionaire, but if the shoe fits:

I find it appalling that millionaire politicians ask me for money. If they really need the money for their campaigns, let's see them put $1-5 million of their own bucks in first, THEN they can ask me to contribute.

Obama is sending a message that he wants and needs the support of real, often marginalized people.  On the other hand, every time Hillary announces a new, big name endorsement, the message is: I have the establishment, I don't need you.

John Edwards can never win the presidency. Everyone needs to wake up to that realization. When repugs play that awful Youtube video of him preening his hair for over two minutes and juxtapose that with "war on terror" scare videos, he is toast. Let's not forget that he said "the war on terror is a slogan". That can never withstand the republican onslaught. It wouldn't matter that he meant something completely different because the lazy MSM will only go along with the misinformation.

Now, I know John means well when he talks about two Americas, but it goes against his massive house in N.C. and his numerous hair $400 hair cuts - at least that's what the GOP will have America believe. Most American's are like my wife. She's votes for strength and how the candidate "makes her feel". It does not take a rocket scientist to know that John Edwards will make most American's feel like he's nothing more than a self absorbed, effeminate, hypocrite. Much the same way John Kerry was made out to be. So, fair or not, John Edwards cannot be president of the United States. Why waste that vote?

"I don't care how poor you are, you've got $5."

If I was John Edwards I would fashion that statement into the Hammer of Thor and pound Obama publicly at the next debate.

I can't begin to tell you how offensive this quote is. Obama can't blame this one on a staffer.

What is offensive is your assumption, somehow, that poor people should not participate in politics.  Everyone does have $5 and everyone should give $5 and darnit if Obama doesn't prove it everyday that he is leading a movement of new politics, baby, it's called "Power to the People!"

There is absolutely nothing wrong with collecting small donations.  People can feel empowered by donating to a political campaign.  However, asking people to "pony up" because "I don't care how poor you are, you've got $5" is somewhat distasteful, even if in this particular case the audience (affluent college kids) can afford the donations.  

The intent of this post by Jerome Armstrong is to diminish Obama's fundraising abilities. Plain and simple. So his attempts to caricature Obama's large, yet accessible fundraising events as "concerts". Are people being forced to attend these "concerts", Jerome?

The question one has to ask is: Why haven't the other campaigns thought about this simple strategy of raising money? I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that small donors are the lifeblood of a sustainable long term campaign.

John Edwards has adopted the same small scale fundraising approach with his Small Change Big Change program. I'm sure by Jerome's standards, Edwards' events are not "concerts" but something more "noble".

Sigh.

What is it with people who give low ratings to comments but don't have the courage of their convictions to post under their own names. Bunch of chickens. Probably the same people who whine about our elected officials not having spines. More irony.

Thanks for the diary Jerome. The linked article is an excellent read.

I'm disappointed in the partisan bickering of the comments. It might be more useful to put the Obama campaign in a little historical perspective. The "movement" or "personality" or "shake up Washington" candidate is hardly a new phenomenom. In fact, it is one of the two standard roles in virtually every nomination race: the first being the established candidate, the second being the "movement" candidate running on a promise of revolutionizing US government and appealing to a populist "hope".

Examples of these movement candidates include McCarthy in '68, Hart in '84, Brown in '92, Perot in '92, Bradley in '00, and Dean in '00. They all ride a wave of youth support, with visions of reshaping the electorate. Most are hailed for their innovative grassroots fundraising whether it's McCarthy's street protest campaign, Brown's use of 1-800 numbers or Dean's use of the internet, or Obama's use of the paid rock concert model. This is not a hard plot line to figure out. If you are the challenger, paint the front-runner as "the man" and run against "the man".

The more things change in American politics, the more they stay the same. It will always be easy to lure some voters into the illusion of revolutionary change. Such revolutionary change will always be an illusion (thank the founding fathers). The "movement" voter base (so far) has always proven to be an illusion at the voting booth where the power of reliable traditional voters prevails.

Will Obama rewrite the script for what has become a reliable plotline? It could happen. To date, the polling suggests that his grassroots appeal has not propelled him across the threshold of "presidential gravitas". But, it's a long campaign.

I would say there are three factors that argue against his breaking the mold:

a) He's up against a very strong front-runner. Veteran observers see the Clinton campaign operation as the best in the business right now, in either party.

b) His unprecedented lack of experience on the national stage is an anchor for his candidacy. No candidate in the modern era as crossed the "presidential gravitas" threshold just two years out of a state legislature.

c) He is, so far, not proving to be a terribly effective campaigner beyond the rock concert stage. His tentativeness and lack of specificity is contributing to the perception of b) above almost to the point where his broad, sweeping rhetoric of hope becomes a negative.

The underlying article Jerome links is actually very interesting and a lot different than the quotes might lead you to believe.  The article is about Obama fundraiser and former Democratic National Committee finance chair Alan Solomont.  The focus is on Solomont, a 58 year old fundraising pro,  who through his involvement with Obama "became energized by a grander mission: to build a web of small donors through personal contact and engage them continuously in the workings of the campaign. For him and his counterparts, Boston would be the test lab for this new ideal of fundraising, which would celebrate it as both the means and the end--as a form of political engagement unto itself, treated as nobly as carrying a petition or writing a letter to the editor. Solomont thought the approach could reawaken citizen involvement in politics, and in April he would test that theory."

The Agganis Arena event, which Jerome includes a mention of in his first quoted passage, is the centerpiece of the article as it was test lab event for Solomont:

If successful campaigns have been vehicles for social change, successful fundraising operations often rely on social aspiration. The model for a major presidential fundraiser hasn't changed in years: hotel ballroom, catered dinner, cocktails with social register worthies. When invitations requesting a minimum contribution of $1,000 went out for a March 30 event for Hillary Clinton at the State Room, they were packed with familiar names from her husband's fundraising network, including former DNC chair Steve Grossman, philanthropist Elaine Schuster, and former U.S. Ambassador Swanee Hunt, as well as a number of women, including Cambridge philanthropist Barbara Lee, particularly energized by the chance to back a serious female White House contender...

Solomont treated the State Room event as a foil. "We've all been to ballrooms with thousand-dollar-a-plate dinners," he says wearily. He was busy imagining an event of his own: Obama's big New England fundraising kickoff, to be held on April 20. For perhaps the first time in his fundraising career, Solomont wanted his success to be measured not in terms of numbers, but in terms of aesthetics. "We're hoping to do a lot of things in addition to raising a lot of money. We want to personify and embody the change that this campaign is about."

The festivities would, Solomont decided, feature both students donating $23 and major donors contributing 100 times that, all under the same roof. And they would be held at a facility whose amenities are rated by the NCAA rather than Gault Millau: Boston University's Agganis Arena. Solomont relished the symbolic contrast between the déclassé college-hockey arena and the four-star meeting space. Anyone who wanted food during the fundraiser--even a little frankfurter!--would have to buy their meal at the concession stand.

In fact they set up a very clever three tier system in multiples of ten around the number 23. While Solomont was going after his contacts who could give $2300, "Mike Bergan, a 27-year-old public affairs consultant...was selling $230 "Generation O" event tickets to young professionals. There was Mitch Robinson, a Tufts senior and former teaching assistant in Solomont's course on the Clinton presidency; after Solomont enlisted him to peddle $23 tickets, Robinson roped in Dan Grant, an Illinoisan who had worked on Democratic campaigns but never before raised money. The two sold 250 tickets at Tufts..."

That's how the $700,000 was raised.  Not by having a rock concert geared completely to kids raiding their parents ATMs, but by mixing three levels of donations and mixing the pros and the people new to politics.  

The U2 analogy blockquoted at the end of Armstrong's piece was made by one of these newbies to political rallies, Mark Goodman, who represents Obama's successful campaign to turn social networking into a powerful fundraising tool.  The full quote, of course more meaningful than the cherrypicked selection, is remarkable for not just what it says about fundraising, but for the realization from a newcomer that this is just the first step in the process that will require continued attention to turn them into votes:

Two suites down from Solomont, Mark Goodman perched on the ledge of the box. He had gathered about 50 donations and brought some 40 attendees, and had seen many of them in the arena. Goodman's sister-in-law Ross was there, having successfully sold 118 tickets to her BU peers, as was his partner, Ken Levine--whose 16-year-old daughter had decided on the spur of the moment to donate, too. "A couple of last-minute cancellations prevented me from hitting my goal by a few hundred dollars," he said. "I learned that you probably have to get commitments for about 120 percent of your goal to actually hit it."

Goodman noted that he had never been to a political rally. He leaned out and surveyed the crowd, filled with students who had lined up around the block to stake out a spot close to the stage, many of them wearing the main act's T-shirts--a green St. Patrick's Day "O'bama" edition was popular--and carrying signs bearing slogans such as "We Love You, Barack."

"It's amazing. It's like a U2 concert," he said. "Now all we have to do is get them all to vote."

He's not taking PAC money. He's got to get the money from somewhere. I find nothing wrong with him asking for $5 or $10 from folks.

I spent $100 for my niece and 3 of her friends to go to his Minnesota rally. I thought it was important for her to see him and possibly get involved.

They went and each of them got a t-shirt = $80. Plus, they'll be wearing their t-shirts around other college students.

He's right to try and build grassroots too.

Give me a break.  You try and paint a bunch of college students as "well-to-do" who are standing in their dining hall selling tickets to an obama fundraiser??  First of all, this does not sound like the behavior of the "well-to-do" to me, but more so a set of skills commonly learned by public school kids selling magazines and candy to raise money for their school.  secondly, you don't even vaguely attempt to back up the claim that these college students are well-off and have lots of disposable income.  

I just got a master's degree, and i can tell you that the thing that most American college students today have in common is overhwelming debt.  These kids are turning out because Obama motivates them, not because they've got nothing better to do with their laundry money.

I don't get it.  HRC votes for the Iraq War and sends kids off to their deaths so that she will appear to be a viable presidential candidate--i.e. desperately wants David Broder and Howard Fineman to say she's "strong on national security"--and people are nitpicking the hell out of Obama's fundraising?  Sheesh.  Let's get some perspective people.

Remember: If Dems nominate Hillary, the Iraq War as an issue is completely off the table for the general election campaign, since she voted for it and supported it.  

this is straight out of community organizing.  ACORN is a membership group that regularly asks for "dues" from it's members -- organizers go door to door to collect.  the idea that there is something wrong with this -- that it is "illegitimate," or that it is somehow hollow -- seems naive and based on an unrealistic view of political commitment.  it's smart, not deceptive or somehow disingenuous.

>>I'll disagree with the Obama campaign over whether their innovative fundraising success forms a legitimate basis from which to brag about having the largest/strongest/awesomest presidential campaign ever in presidential history (which is pretty much what Obama's campaign claims),