Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Obama’s defense on public financing (1:09 pm)
Ezra’s right here. There’s a simple solution to McCain’s attacks about public financing.
So far as the whole public financing controversy goes, is there a reason that Obama shouldn’t simply say, “I never wanted to have a campaign run by corporate interests, and I never understood that I could have a campaign funded by more than a million Americans making small sum contributions?” His ability to get more than a million separate individuals to contribute is remarkable, and should be turned into the story.I came around on this too, and I think this route paints McCain (or Clinton) as not only cynical about civic action (in the very loose, consumerist sense) but beholden to large donors.
posted by Adam Doster
Reader Comments
I see your concern, but that’s not what is happening with BHO. As the folks over at Mother Jones argue, “when one million people donate to your campaign in increments of roughly $110 each, that is public financing.”
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/02/73 363_obama_nets_mill.html
posted by Jonathan on 2-28-08 at 10:04 AM
I LOVE OBAMA HE IS AWSOME
Interesting suggestion. If the bulk of his contributions—speaking in terms of dollars not number of donors—are coming from small donors, this explanation might fly. If on the other hand he has lots of small donors BUT most of the money is coming from a relatively few large institutional sources, then this argument falls apart. In other words if I have 100 donors and 5 give very large contributions making up the bulk of my campaign funding and the other 95 give small donations, I can claim that the vast majority of my donors are small donors even though most of my money is coming from large ones. Candidates love to play these games.
posted by Craig Dunkerley on 2-27-08 at 7:04 PM