NYC Letter: One Billion Dollars Five Three One Dollar Fifteen Million Dollars At A Time!

Day 1,215 of CHOPE

You know, the fact of the matter is, the president's, ah, support as demonstrated, ah, by contributions is, ah, demon-, becomes [sic] demonstrably from, ah, small, ah, you know, people that contribute a little bit. They're not from huge donors at all.

Jay Carney,
WH press secretary,
shilling the little donors fairy tale
PRESS BRIEFING
WASHINGTON May 22, 2012 (YouTube)

"They're not from huge donors at all." Except for the huge donations.

GEORGE CLOONEY OBAMA FUNDRAISER
NETS $15 MILLION

May 11, 2012 (HuffPo) - While Republicans mocked President Barack Obama for holding fundraiser at the home of George Clooney, he may be the one getting the last laugh.

The 150-person event, held Thursday night, brought in $15 million, from both ticket prices -- $40,000 per person -- and donations of $3 or more that entered donors into a raffle to win tickets to the event, according to the Los Angeles Times. Tens of thousands of donors contributed an average of $23 in hopes of winning a ticket, the LA Times reported, raising almost $10 million for the campaign.

... It brought in over $10 million more than most fundraising events of about the same size, in which the typical haul is between $1 million and $4 million, according to the Daily Beast.

That attendees accounted for $6M and small donors for $9M would seem to make Mr. Carney's point. [Pause.] Except that loads the word "support" with two different meanings. Campaign Barry uses number of donors and size of donations interchangeably for strength of support.

A $5-$3-$1 donation is not a big stake in Mr. Obama's re-election. Small donations are proportionally indicative of the strength of support. That strength of support is further diminished when you consider that these small donations are tricked out with door-prize gimmicks, e.g., dinner with George Clooney. In the same way a $1 state lotto ticket purchase is not necessarily the buyer supporting a state's targeted budget expenditure or general fund. It is the buyer making a small bet for a statistically improbable big return to himself. Donating $1 to Campaign Barry for a shot at meeting a Hollywood celebrity or the celebrity president himself is not necessarily support you can bank on at the polls.

Inversely, a one million dollar donation is also indicative of the strength of support. A large money contribution is a safe bet the donor is going to vote his donation.

BILL MAHER UNVEILS 'SURPRISE' $1 MILLION
DONATION TO OBAMA'S SUPER-PAC
February 23, 2012 (The Hill)

Is anyone in doubt who Bill Maher will be voting for come November?

But a large money contribution is more than the donor's vote, it is the means to influence votes. Big time politics requires big time money. That kind of support can only be had from big time donors, not small donors as campaign advisor David Axelrod inadvertently attests while defending Money Team Barry's Republican Apocalypse e-mail solicitations.

Our average donation is like $55. It would take 181,000 of those donations to match the one anonymous donation that Karl Rove got [scil., $25M]. And that's why we went out and reached out to our folks, because we need to combat this kind of tactic.

Money Team Barry is said to have a database of two million donors. E-mail response rates hover around 1%. At that rate, an e-mail solicitation to the entire database Rolodex might produce 20,000 responses. At $55 a response Money Team Barry collects $1,100,000 dollars, but incessant e-mail begs probably halves that number to $550,000 or $24,450,000 shy of keeping pace with Karl Rove. Mr. Axelrod knows that won't win the day, which is why Mr. Obama abandoned his once preachy opposition to super PAC monies.

The strength of support among small donors is just a fabulous talking point. The strength of support in dollars from big donors is Campaign Barry's B Plan.

PRO-OBAMA SUPER PAC FUND-RAISING
LAGS BEHIND RIVAL

May 21, 2012 (CNN) - The super PAC [scil., Priorities USA Action] supporting President Barack Obama's re-election reported raising just under $1.6 million in April, well below the amount raised by the group [scil., Restore Our Future] supporting Obama's rival Mitt Romney.

More than half (62.5%) of that amount came from just one donor.

Labor groups donated big to the pro-Obama group in April. The largest contribution came from the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, which gave the organization $1 million.

What CNN is loathe to report is that the pro-Obama Priorities donations were down 33% from March ($2.4M). The pro-Romney Restore donations were also down (47%), but almost triple ($4.6M) the Priorities total.

Priorities USA Action also reported having $4.7 million cash on hand at the end of April, slightly more than half of the amount in Restore Our Future's war chest.

We imagine there is still lots of money on the sidelines waiting for the race to shape up. If Mr. Romney stays close Money Team Barry may see a surge in late money from donors who will want to be remembered as tipping the advantage. If Mr. Obama trails going into September, donors will sit on their cash in a losing cause.

CHOPE.

Forget the small donors meme, huge donors needed!

Posted by Damian at May 23, 2012 11:30 AM