Obama $70M?
by Patrick Ruffini :: March 1st, 2008 10:57 amRemember this graphic? The one we used to power the crowdsourced spreadsheet?
It’s no longer featured on Obama’s site, but it’s been growing at a torrid pace. When I first ventured the $60M prediction a week ago, it stood at just over 600,000.
It was at 963,525 last night at 11:30. It’s now at 985,525 (they are adding to the total in 2,000 increments).
It was at 256,000 on January 31st.
That means that the Obama campaign has received 708,000 individual donations in February. Using the $109 average contribution figure Obama used in the last debate, that translates to $77.2 million.
Now, let’s charitably assume that their average is slipping as the pie gets bigger. Four out of five donations seem to come from repeat givers, judging from the growth of this graphic compared to their “One Million” campaign. If the average is $100 (Kerry’s online average), that’s over $70 million. If it’s $90, that’s $63.7 million. The average contribution would need to be just under $85 for them not to clear $60 million. That’s would be a full $24 below the figure quoted by the candidate himself.
So, while I’m not necessarily predicting $70 million or more myself, I now see it as a distinct possibility. Their body language seems to suggest that $60 million is at the low end of the scale, both in their swagger at Clinton’s $35 million and public predictions of “over $50 million.” Clinton’s team publicly suggested $25 to $30 million and got to $35 million. And while this may be trivial at this point, Obama added $4 million in uncounted money between their $32 million January release and their $36 million FEC filing. A similar shortfall this time would pad their total by $8 million. Since they’ve actually waited until March to announce the total, they might be looking to include every last penny in the report now that $60 million has been factored into public expectations and they’ve been guiding reporters with “over $50 million” for about a week.
If the margin between the prospective Democratic and Republican nominees is in fact on the order of $70 million - $12 million, then we have to put our noses to the grindstone. A period of radical experimentation and innovation is in order, and the playbook gets thrown out the window.
Tagged: 2008 
barack obama fundraising
Comments (31) 
Trackbacks (7) 
del.icio.us 
digg it 
subscribe
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Shouldn’t the Republicans just file for the political equivalent of Chapter 7. The incompetence of the Bush Adminstration, former Speaker Hastert, and former majority leader Frist has destroyed the brand name. Demographic changes encouraged by the same incompetents have destroyed any opportunity for a Republican comeback.
Anyone who is in their 20’s and wants a career in politics would be a fool to become a Republican.
There is no policy, no strategy, no leader that can make up for the absolute stupdity and incompetence of the Bush Administration or make up for the differences in birthrates between whites (Republican voters) and everyone else.
Perhaps we should all just kneel down and pledge fealty to the messiah of hope and change, eh?
Ironman,
Senator Obama will probably get closer to delivering the free goodies to the masses that he is promising than President Bush has been in delivering fiscal responsiblity, smaller government, and a more responsbile government has been.
The incompetence of the Republicans in the Bush Administration has destroy any issue that a Republican can use. It is impossible for a Republican to mention fiscal responsibility at a political rally without being laughed off the stage. It is absolutely impossible for any Republican to talk about small government or government delivering basic government service due to the failures of the Bush Admnistration
The first thing McCain should say at every rally is that no one who worked in the Bush Administration will ever work in his administartion. He should also say that there will be no patronage jobs and no hacks working as political appointees.
Superdestroyed, your a goof. it absolutely blows my mind that people like you blame Bush for everything that happens. one second people are saying that the guy is an idiot and then next thing you know, Bush is so powerful that he can create all the chaos in the world. you need to get a grip and lay off the koolaid kid. i strongly suggest that you take a class or pick up a book on government to see how it really runs.
Brian,
Are you arguing that the Bush Administration had not been imcompetent? Are you arguing that the debt has not expended the fastest it ever has? Are you arguing that the government has not grown during the Bush Administration?
I do not blame President Bush by himself. He surrounded himself with incompetent staff. He also suffered from the miserable leadership of Haster, Delay, and Frist in Congress. President Bush also suffered from some horrible cabinet members and corrupt political appointments.
Maybe you could explain what the Bush Administration has done that any Republican candidate could use as a positive of being a Republican.
Until the Republican decide that running on issues means who have to act on those issues and that competence is important, then no amount of fund raising will get them elected.
A dollar’s worth of truth can destroy a million bucks of lies.
“The first thing McCain should say at every rally is that no one who worked in the Bush Administration will ever work in his administartion”
Now I’m one of those folks who think the likes of Michael Brown and Scott McClellan should have been ridden across the 14th Street Bridge on a rail, however…
it is not going to be credible to treat everyone who accepted an appointed position in DC over 8 years worse than the current Iraqi government is treating former Baathist party members.
Besides, if we depend on the career bureaucrats and perpetual interest group insiders to staff a McCain administration we might get more competent governance, but it most assuredly will be far from conservative governance
Is anyone going to actually look into where this money is really coming from? The media says we’re knee-deep in a recession, and that voters rank economic concerns as their number 1 issue, and yet somehow Obama is getting $60m+ a month.
superdestroyer is, unfortunately, correct and I say that as a Republican who voted for that SOB Bush (Kerry was not a rational alternative). Bush is massively incompetent and has done more damage to conservatism, a strong defense policy and the Republican Party than any Democrat has in the last 40 years. He has no leadership capability whatsoever. None. He is maniacally dumb, to use Newt Gingrich’s phrase, when it comes to appointments (and everything else). Harriet Myers? Chertoff? “Brownie”? Ironically, he’s one of only two presidents to have a master’s degree in Business ADMINISTRATION! The moron couldn’t coach a Little League team with any skill. He may not, in fact, be the worst president in US history but it’s not for lack of trying. Thousands of US soldiers are dead or severely wounded because of his lazy bungling of the Iraq invasion and its follow up. For that alone, I will never forgive him. He is a supernova of arrogant, brain-dead incompetence.
No only is President Bush massively incompetent. Remember, Hastert, Delay, and Frist worked very hard to probe how incompetent they were. It seems like the way that Republicans have been picking leaders lately is not find out the politicians who never read their briefing books, never listen to their advisers, and never even read the newspaper.
Patrick thinks that campaign strategy or net internet campaigns can make up for incompetent, weak, uninformed candidates. In reality, it is the other way around. Good, strong, competent candidates and competent leaders can make virtually any political gimic look good. Bad leaders, incompetent politicians, and poor staffs will overcome any strategy.
Here’s another one: George Allen. Many in the Republican Party were actually seriously considering him as a presidential candidate. Ever see him interviewed? He makes Bush look intelligent. Just a stark, staring moron. And I don’t care one way or the other about the ridiculous “macaca” controversy. In my opinion, Bush (the elder) lost to Clinton largely because of his VP Dan Quayle. Quayle, Allen, and Bush II - there’s no good reason for these people to be in any position of power or authority anywhere and the voters of all parties know it. Weak, stupid candidates.
I don’t take anyone seriously who thinks George H.W. Lost to Clinton because of Dan Quayle.
At some point bitching about all the bad stuff President Bush and GOP leaders did becomes pointless. It’s time to look forward and figure out how to get the party back on a conservative track.
$12 million/month raised by McCain won’t cut until the convention. I’m not so much worried about his getting trounced on the airwaves as much as Obama will put together one hell of a GOTV effort using microtargeting, CRM, anything else Silicon Valley geeks whip up. McCain sticks to old fashioned fundraisers. The guy has nothing to lose. That campaign needs to experiment.
I don’t know anyone who cares what you take seriously, Sean.
Sean must be another 20 something wonk who believes that the incompetent, ability, and leadership skills of the candidate do not matter and that election gimmicks are what win elections. This, in the week that the Bush Administration announces that it is incapable of building 28 miles of a border fence and is incapable of managing an e-mail system.
Before the GOTV, before the fancy web pages, before the CRM, campaigns, parties, and voters require competence. Until the Republicans repudiate President Bush, repudiate everyone who has worked for him, and vow that hack politicians and incompetence leaders have no place in the Republican Party, they will continue to lose.
“repudiate everyone who has worked for him”
I presume we should fire everyone who worked BC ‘04 then. We are going to take on a potential billion dollar juggernaut with rookies?
maybe people donate because obama looks like an angel on his blog website. people think they are actually contributing at church… here is an interesting obama article, if just a tidbit about his work in illinois. http://www.houstonpress.com/2008-02-28/news/barack-obama-screamed-at-me/
Sure, you could believe that McCain needs to repudiate Bush, or that people donate to Obama because he’s like a religious leader, or some other hairbrained idea that you want to float…
But what if it’s as simple as the fact that Obama’s campaign — and to a lesser extent, Hillary’s — understands the internet, and the Republican Party does not?
Frankly, I think the Republican Party is in danger because it has become unglued from reality, and completely fails to see how that’s a problem in an age of blogs, youtube, easy access to information, etc. where every stupid, wrongheaded thing you say is likely to factchecked or can come back to bite you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUKINg8DCUo
This kind of reality is why the Mark Penn’s of this world are now coming over as deluded as the Iraqi Minister of Information. Misinformation and scare tactics just don’t sell as well anymore.
Mark,
No one is disagreeing with you. However, a political leader needs to be competent enough to read and understand what his given him and he needs a staff that he competent enough to prepare the politician to be in the public eye. The Bush Administration has never demonstrated that level of competent. McCain has never demonstrated that level of competence.
For a campaign to function in the web 2.0 would, it needs to be competent above anything else. The blogs, youtube, and internet firestorms can be handled by a competent politician and his staff. There is no current Republican nor any future Republican who has demonstrated that level of competence.
Patrick,
Are you sure you’re right with your dollar-per-donor estimate?
In your previous estimate, you basically took January’s total income, divided that by total contributors, and came out with $140.
Well, hate to tell you this, but that number is probably considerably more accurate than the $109 figure — the average donation cited by Sen. Obama at the last debate.
The rationale for this is because the total contributors number that the Obama camp mentions in your metrics does *NOT* correspond to total donations. It really is the amount of people who have donated, many of whom have donated more than once.
In that sense, the $140 average from last month makes sense, in that it reflects the average $109 donation per member *PLUS* $31 worth of additional donations by existing members.
While I agree with you that it’s likely that the $109 average donation is decreasing as the Obama campaign starts to run out of the “lower hanging fruit”, the additional donations may have actually increased somewhat this month, as the Obama campaign was very aggressive in asking for matching donations, sending specifically targeted emails to previous donors that went to a somewhat different URL and no doubt did not effect their “total contributors” metrics.
What I think we are seeing with Obama and Hillary are the equivalent of two “snowballs”, each gathering active grassroots donors.
Imagine this was January, and Hillary’s email list had one million people on it, while Obama’s had two… and each candidate raised money relative to the size of their email list.
Due to grassroots networking, each tended to double in size every month. Hillary’s became 2M on Feb. 1, Obama’s became 4M. Hillary’s became 4 on March 1, Obama’s became 8.
Now, of course, things don’t scale perfectly ad infinitum. Eventually, there’s a curve off, and, as you mentioned, donations will tend to decrease in size. That said, there’s *STILL* a lot of room to scale a campaign in America… even one with over 1M paying contributors.
Really, the question becomes one of how you compete against such a big “snowball” that is still scaling in size, growing *on slow days* by about 8K new contributors, which translates to over $1M a day?
Which begs the question, really. At what point will it be too late for John McCain to start competing with such a behemoth? What happens if Obama’s snowball “rolls up” Hillary’s supporters, and they start funding the DNC… and are capable of significantly outraising your initial assessment of $60M per month… perhaps growing to double or triple it?
Something tells me that the Republican Party is not going to enjoy finding out that answer.
“The Bush Administration has never demonstrated that level of competent. McCain has never demonstrated that level of competence.”
I do not disagree with this statement. Huckabee would have a better shot of doing so than either of the two, primarily because he has a motivated grassroots organization.
The ultimate problem is, the current crop of Republicans — with the exception of Ron Paul and Huckabee — just do not motivate anyone… and when they do, they do not motivate those from outside their base.
Rob
The problem with your question, is that you haven’t factored in the demographics of Obama’s support which is to say Gen-X and younger knowledge workers [educated, unmarried, creative class types].
In buzz word free terms, that makes for a ton of disposable income. Or let me put it this way, people with $399 to drop on an iPhone have $399 to give to Obama.
well, it will be fun if in 2012 all these twentysomethings have no disposable income and see what happens then
@MarkKraft,
“Something tells me that the Republican Party is not going to enjoy finding out that answer.”
Nope, they aren’t.
Ironman
The two important things to remember about that group is that their sector of the economy is growing not shrinking [especially as its not bound to the shore so to speak] and that while they are fiscally conservative they are quite socially liberal. Which is to say, people like Mike Huckabee kind of freak them out. Mitt Romney’s magic underwear didn’t do wonders for them either. Mark and Pat R are right.
Hi Dirk,
You are right to some extent in your views:
“….. people with $399 to drop on an iPhone have $399 to give to Obama. ” Also , Mark Kraft has done his calculatios accurate! “It really is the amount of people who have donated, many of whom have donated more than once.”
Sean
All the twenty-somethings remember about politics is the incompetence of both Bush presidents. All they know is that the Republicans are incompetent and totally incapable of doing anything that they promises and incapable of managing in factor of the government. The stupidity and incompetence of the current Bush Administration has alienate most twenty somethings that is will be practically impossible for the Republican Party to get them back.
No internet gimmick, no campaign strategy, no policy idea will ever get the twenty-somethings to believe that the Republicans are competent enough to run any facet of the government.
superdesdestroyer:
“Anyone who is in their 20’s and wants a career in politics would be a fool to become a Republican.”
On the contrary, the best place to begin a career in politics, especially if you want to be influential, is at the beginning or at the end of a cycle. They are effectively one and the same. This is where you rebuild, re-think, and re-conceptualize your principles.
Your hatred makes you an ineffective propagandist.
Reasons why a 20 something will be wasting their time if they go into Republican politics.
1. The demographic trends of U.S. make a comeback by the Republican Party extremely unlikely. Either the Republicans get a higher percentage of the white vote with every election cycle or the Republicans start getting a higher percentage of the minority vote. Either one is very unlikely. No internet stategy, no election gimmick will probably ever get blacks or Hispanics to vote for Republicans.
Before you start screaming propaganda, please list a couple of demographic groups that currently vote Democratic that the Republicans have any chance of gaining.
2. In the near future, the Republicans will have no effect on policy. Currently all Republicans can do is obstruct. As the Democrats get more seats in Congress, it will become impossible for the Republicans to obstruct the Democrats. Thus, the only thing the Republicans can do is act as an irrelevant opposition, pork up the budget with earmarks, and perform constituent services. Who wants to go into politics to prepare form veterans for the constituents.
3. Anyone going into Republican politics has to overcome the across the board incompetence of the Bush Administration, former Speaker Hastert, and former majority leader Frist. The Republicans cannot even find a governor who does not appear to be incompetent of running a government, balancing a budget, or limiting government.
The Democrat Congress has been incompetent, sleazy, dishonest, over-partisan, and dangerous to American prosperity and peace.
Just two examples:
1. The Congress’ deliberate failure to reauthorize the Keep America Safe Act, FISA, is an act of legislative malpractice. If they were anyone but politicians, they would be sued for negligence.
2. if Democrats make the Bush tax cuts expire, they will have effected a huge tax increase at a time when the economy need less burdens on production, not more. This will be a huge blow to the economy and send it reeling. Why are the Democrats’ threatening the economy like this? Because to do anything else would force them to give up on their giveaway programs and promises. It took the Republicans 12 years to get a bit too comfortable with earmarks, special interest politics and lavish spending, a habit that cost them their majority … But it took the Democrats barely 12 months to do the same. Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid and the Democrats in Congress have approved 276 BILLION in new spending above the increase Bush has approved.
There are few signs that the Democrats in Congress are getting dinged on their bad habits and malfeasance.
The Democrats tried but failed to lose the war in Iraq. Bush outsmarted them and was able to keep the surge going until the success of the surge is now obvious to all but the most partisan. Likewise, the Congress attempted to expand earmarks and Bush shot it down.
The liberal basher here is *so* 2006 with his tired, old charges against two men who are retired from politics. His claim of ‘incompetence’ is somewhere between ironic and laughable. The incompetent Democrat gov Blanco was replaced by Bobby Jindhal, uber-competent and already has a session where did an amazing job of introducing serious ethics reform into Louisiana. Hastert is the Republican past; incompetents Pelosi and Reid is the Democrat present; Jindhal is the Republican future.
“please list a couple of demographic groups that currently vote Democratic that the Republicans have any chance of gaining.”
Here are the groups that the Republicans can go after:
People with functioning brains.
People who work and pay taxes.
People who are adults and are trying to raise kids.
People who give a hoot about the future of American civilization.
Here are the groups lost to Republicans:
People looking for government handouts.
People who have an American Idol view of politics.
People too young remember how awful Jimmy Carter was and actually believe the pile-o-phony-cr*p that Slick Obama selling them.
People who support the Berkeley City Council over the US military.
Patrikc,
The groups you listed are not demographic groups. blacks, Hispanic, jews, homosexuals are work, all pay taxes, and all vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates.
Blacks and Hispanics have more children of average than whites and vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.
White collar urbanites give a hoot about the future of America and vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.
However, the Democrats have made huge inroads into suburban whites, evangelicals, and twenty somethings. The Republicans do not seem to have a plan to focus on any demographic groups that now vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. The Republicans have lost groups like suburban whites due to the incompetence of the Bush Administration, the Republicans in Congress, and Republicans at the state level. The current Republican leadership comes off as out of touch, incompetent, and believers in loony ideas. Until the Republicans decide competence and ability matter more than focus groups and election gimmicks, they have no chance of regaining power.
Look at Karl Rove’s idea of using open borders, amnesty, and unlimited immigration to appeal to Hispanics. It costs the Republicans in support and donations while managing to actually lose Hispanic support.
[…] Obama $70M? […]
[…] Obama $70M? - Patrick Ruffini Remember this graphic? The one we used to power the crowdsourced spreadsheet? (tags: obama 2008) […]
[…] Here’s how the next 48 hours play out: I’m betting Barack’s campaign leaks their February fundraising haul tomorrow. It’s rumored to be a big number. Big as in $50m, $60m or even (gasp) $70m. Keep in mind that in 2004, Howard Dean raised $59m. For the entire primary season. […]
[…] Patrick Ruffini :: Obama $70M? A closer look at how Obama is targeting the wisdom of crowds, the power of we, etc. Powerful implications not just for politics but also business. Instead of going for big customers who pay lots, go for many who can pay a little. (tags: socialmedia crowdsourcing) […]
[…] Third, Obama is raising insane amounts of money. By some estimates, more than $70 million in the last few weeks alone. If Obami Wan Kenobi knocks Hillary out of the race today, then he can deploy all that money against McCain in the general election. But if Ms. 3A.M. hangs on to the convention, he’ll have to keep spending tons of that money against her. […]
[…] Bottom line: I don’t think the dynamics of the race have changed. And Obama has been saving up some big announcements for this week. I suspect in the next day or two we’ll hear a bunch of super delegates endorsing him. As importantly, I’m betting that he announces his 1st quarter money numbers today or tomorrow. And if Patrick is right, they will be front page news. Holding all of this news back was a good move by the Obama. It gives them a chance to recapture the momentum, even on the heels of a couple of losses. […]
[…] In fact, two of Ruffini’s most notable recent successes in online media relate to Obama: > During the Iowa caucuses, Ruffini used Facebook and blogging to loosely organize Iowa voters who could use Twitter on their mobile phones to report how their particular caucus was voting — before the official vote reached mainstream media outlets. Ruffini aggregated their reports in a special Twitter feed, and was able to see a trend toward Obama’s surprise victory before the traditional media. > Thanks to Obama having a running count on the number of donations on his website, Ruffini was able to crowdsource the work of keeping tabs on how many donations came in for the month of February on a shared Google Spreadsheet. Later, when Hillary Clinton’s campaign announced she had raised $35 million in February, Ruffini was able to estimate that Obama had likely doubled her, raising $70 million for the month. […]