I think Politico is misquoting some figures on Dean's fundraising in the primaries.

[madfloridian]

I just read this article there by Jeanne Cummings, comparing fundraising numbers. It is when she quotes some numbers Joe Trippi gave her that I realized it did not sound right.

GOP Funk: Top Dems Have Twice As Many Donors

Here is the part I question:

The challenge, Trippi said, is that the Republicans now must try to catch the Democrats. "Once you've grown the base as big as the candidates have, we're not going to stop," he said. "This will only become a much bigger problem for the Republicans."

As Howard Dean's campaign manager, Trippi helped break all donor records by drawing about 200,000 contributors to Dean's unsuccessful bid. It's a record Trippi believes could be easily broken this year. "(Bill) Richardson is well ahead of our pace. That's how exponential this thing is growing," he added.

I thought that did not sound like enough. I found this post by Jerome Armstrong at MyDD. He quotes Larry Biddle, who was certainly in a position to know the figures. Here is something on Larry Biddle from earlier.

http://dmany.convio.net/site/PageServer?pagename=Speakerbio
Larry Biddle
Larry Biddle is (was) the Deputy National Finance Director for Dean for America.
His areas of responsibility include Internet giving, direct mail and
telemarketing. Prior to working on Howard Dean’s campaign for president, he
served as Finance Director for Chellie Pingree for U.S. Senate (Maine) and
Allyson Schwartz for U.S. Senate (Pennsylvania). Before moving to political
fundraising, Larry worked as an organization development consultant and
created management information systems and fundraising operations for
nonprofits. Over those 30 years, he helped raise more than $350 million.
Recently, Biddle was a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton
School of Executive Education in Internet commerce.

He went on to Betty Castor's tough campaign, and she came within 1% of Martinez.

Here is what Jerome posted.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/4/10/235233/471

"A follow up on the money race... I did a bit of researching (calling Larry
Biddle) to find out the question that I'd asked earlier in a blog post about
how many people Howard Dean had contribute to his presidential campaign

This was sparked from having looked a bit into the number of donors for Dean
during 2003 for 1Q (11,000) and 2Q (73,000), and seeing the '07 numbers for
1Q by Obama (83,500), Clinton (50,000), and Edwards (40,000) completely
eclipse the 1Q pace set by Dean.

The number of donors to Dean's campaign was approximately 318,000 and the
total number of donations made was approximately 454,000. The 1Q numbers by
the big three total about half the Dean numbers overall."

I do question The Politico's figures on this. Those were amazimg figures from the upstart Dean campaign. It was probably one of the first campaigns to not insist on controlling from the top down. Considering everything, the numbers were amazing.

[babylonsister]

1. I stopped trusting Politico unless someone else I trust

posts a link. They are wrong too often.

[madfloridian]

5. This is several times they have been proved wrong.

I agree.

[merh]

2. I don't trust Politico at all.

They messed up on the Edward's dropping out of the campaign story and they tend to slant their reporting, sometimes way to much for my comfort.

This article bugs me to no end. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0407/3469.html

I just don't trust 'em.

[madfloridian]

3. That's a divisive article.

I don't trust them yet either.

[merh]

4. Isn't it though.

And do you know where I found it, posted on a right slanted forum, the righties were using it to mock Pelosi and they were able to say that lefties can't get along and eat their own.

I think politico exists to generate just these type of tales, they have an agenda and it is not to help our party.

[babylonsister]

6. Hi, merh! From carpetbaggerreport, a review:

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10530.html

The Politico delivers another key political scoop
Posted 4:40 pm | Printer Friendly | Spotlight

Digg this • Add to del.icio.us • Email this

The truth is, I want to like The Politico. I like the idea of an online team of experienced political journalists breaking stories, updating developments, offering valuable insights, and doing it all in a quick, blog-like style of reporting. There was a niche and The Politico set out to fill it. I was vaguely optimistic when it got started.

And it’s been disappointing me ever since.

I won’t bother dredging up every error of fact and/or judgment The Politico has made in its short tenure, but it’s items like this one, published this afternoon, that are the most disappointing. Beneath a photo of John Edwards, Ben Smith writes:

How much, you ask does it cost to look like that?

Well, John Edwards’ campaign for president spent $400 on February 20, and another $400 on March 7, at a top Beverly Hills men’s stylist, Torrenueva Hair Designs….

Edwards’ campaign also spent money at two spas: Designworks Salon in Dubuque, and Pink Sapphire in Manchester.

C’mon, Politico. Haircuts? We’re already at the stage at which candidates’ haircuts are worth covering?

I suppose one could note that Laura Bush recently got a $700 haircut, which seemed to generate almost no attention at all, but what’s the point? There’s no reason to even bother. Haircut prices aren’t interesting or important.

At least, they shouldn’t be.

And speaking of The Politico, the online mag ran an item late last week about some alleged controversy in which Klaus Scharioth, Germany’s ambassador to the United States, met Barack Obama through an intermediary who who’s active in US-German issues. Scharioth attended an Obama fundraiser, but only as a guest — he didn’t contribute a dime.

The Politico’s Kenneth Vogel did a little digging, found nothing scandalous, but wrote a story pointing to some ambiguous controversy anyway. Matt Yglesias explains the problem.

At this point, Vogel came up with absolutely nothing. But instead of not writing the story, he wrote an exhaustive account of a dozen different things that might have been improper or politically damaging about this. None of these things, however, are actually true. But rather than admit that he has no story, Vogel chose to write it up as if he’s unconvered something and then — bam! — his story becomes the lede item on the site further implying there’s something here.

Dear Politico,

Please improve. Quickly.

Sincerely,
The Carpetbagger Report

[merh]

7. I agree 100% with their review

"please improve, quickly"

but then I must add to it

"or shut the hell up"

they either have an agenda (publishing stories that are sort of true and that are divisive or damning) or they went to the Bill O'Rielly school of journalism. The facts don't matter as long as you get your story written.

thanks for posting the review :hi:


it's good to see you :hug:

[babylonsister]

8. And nice to see you, my friend! Did you see this? and what do you

think?
And these are for you! :hug: :hug:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2809760

[merh]

9. thank you for calling my attention to that wonderful bit of news

I posted in the thread. I hope the other insurance companies realize that they really need to settle rather than face $1 million punitive damages award added to what they owe.

thank you :woohoo:

:hug:

[madfloridian]

10. I know of two people who wrote them last night with the info in the OP

I just checked the article again, and nothing has changed. Looks like they would do some more research, don't you think? Or add an update? Credible sites do that. They don't just change facts in the story, they Update with the corrected info. That's what credible sites do.

[madfloridian]

11. Still no update or mention that they might have been wrong.

I asked both folks I knew who wrote them if they had heard, and they said no.

It's not all that important except they may have something wrong again and are ignoring it.

[w4rma]

12. Where did Politico come from? I've never heard of them up until very very recently.

What do they have on their site that other sites don't have?

I think I vaguely remember reading somewhere that they were somehow affiliated with Drudge.

[madfloridian]

13. I think there was a post that Drudge referred to Politico 42 times

in a short period. John Harris WP is the editor. They just seem to get so much stuff wrong or incomplete.

[madfloridian]

14. Two mea culpas not long ago.....nothing yet on this possible error.

In spite of two emails that I know of...they are not correcting it. Or addressing it as an issue.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3180384&mesg_id=3181300

"VandeHei :
"On Gerstein: Yes, we muffed it. We should have clearly stated Gerstein is a paid adviser to Sen. Joe Lieberman. It was wrong to assume our readers would know Gerstein is not only a Liebermaniac but a paid one at that!"

Hell, yes, VandeHei, your readers may have thought he was a "former" advisor only.

Harris:

"As long as we are talking about the left's critique of Politico, we'd be remiss in not addressing the criticism we are getting, mostly from liberal blogs, for running Democratic operative Dan Gerstein's attack on the left-wing blogosphere without saying that the former communications director for Sen. Joe Lieberman happens to STILL be on his payroll. What about that? (Ben, I believe you got us into that fix by directing Gerstein to our pages in the first place. Shouldn't you have warned your editors that this would make the blogs mad?)"

Ben Smith...isn't he the one who put out the missive that Edwards was stopping the campaign? Is that who Harris is blaming? "

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3013.html