Some on the right are just figuring out what hit them and how he did it.

[alfredo]

http://www.thenextright.com/patrick-ruffini/we-should-not-minimize-obamas-fundraising-advantage


We Should Not Minimize Obama's Fundraising Advantage


by Patrick Ruffini | December 5, 2008 at 3:16 PM
in Barack Obama fundraising online politics Strategy
Today, the final fundraising numbers of the 2008 election cycle were released, showing Barack Obama climbing to a staggering $750 million haul for the election season. Obama's spending in the general election was $300 million to McCain's $84 million in public funding. Obama outspent McCain by $135 million to $26.5 million in the final two weeks of the campaign.

Several prominent conservatives have sought to minimize the significance of Obama's accomplishment, pointing to this Campaign Finance Institute study showing that Obama's mix of small and high dollar donations was roughly similar to President Bush's in 2004, or pointing to the Obama campaign's poor protections against online credit card fraud.

All of these rationalizations miss the point. Saying that the Obama campaign's fundraising is not noteworthy except for its scale is like saying Mount Everest is not noteworthy except for its height. Online fundraising empowers small donors -- but it also reduces the transaction costs for big donors and enables more people to join the ranks of large and medium donors through multiple donations throughout the course of the election season. Obama's fundraising marked a categorical shift, not so much in empowering small donors, but in building an infinitely scalable campaign that could be dialed up to virtually any level Obama wanted.

[Captain Hilts]

1. They've been stomped in two consecutive elections - 06 & 08.

Learn to suck on it and like it.

[alfredo]

4. Will the new party leader listen to their grassroots? It should be interesting

to see what direction they take and how bruising the power struggles to come.

I haven't been listening to their inside baseball since the election so I don't know how intense the in-fighting, if any.

[NOW tense]

2. This misses the point

That President Elect Obama wasn't just any candidate. It is not a recipe for all candidates.

[alfredo]

5. That's the rub. Good fundraising couldn't have saved McCain. You need

a candidate that doesn't suck.

Obama was the complete package.

[Richard Steele]

3. Fundraising, schmundraising...after 8 years of B*sh, voters would have elected a flat rock(D).

And, frankly, all the money in the world could not have
damaged McCain's campaign half as much as McCain did.

Ten billion dollars worth of Obama TV ads would not have cost
McCain half the votes that Palin did...or half the votes that
his many (insert senile&clueless incident HERE) did.

[Captain Hilts]

9. True. We started the spanking in '06. nt

[aquart]

6. The problem was nobody wanted to give money to the Republicans.

That's what they aren't in the mood to look at. People who had money gave it to Dems. Also, the illegal avenues of Republican coercive fundraising were closed with the convictions of Abramoff and Cunningham, and the exile of DeLay.

[alfredo]

12. They knew the Reps were toast. Obama got more for his money too.

[rocktivity]

7. The "mix of small and large donors matching Bush's in 2004" makes them look REALLY silly

because if memory serves me correctly, Bush, um, WON.

:eyes:
rocknation

[alfredo]

10. Some are still debating that.

[annabanana]

8. It really IS public financing by another method...

They'll never match it with policy that most Americans hate, and useless people at the helm. .

[alfredo]

11. They only see things in dollars and cents, not people.