Well, the 3rd quarter is over, which means that the set of speculation over various and sundry people’s fundraising totals may now kick into high gear. Probably the most anticipated numbers will be coming from Obama for America (OfA), given their haul last time – and their brags this time. The Politico has started off with an eye-grabbing headline – “ Obama 3Q haul: $55M or more? ” (H/T: Hot Air )- which is at least something that we can use to start looking at numbers. And write elaborate posts about them, for that matter. Let’s go with the traditional bullet points on what needs to be taken into account at this stage of fundraising reporting. The Obama campaign likes to low-ball its initial fundraising estimates . I note this with neither approval nor disapproval: it’s a perfectly legitimate tactic, as long as you don’t overdo it. So don’t be surprised if that $55 million ticks upward. That $55 million number is a combined total . We went over why t his was an important point to make last quarter: to summarize, OfA generated $773 million specifically for Obama’s campaign in 2008. We weren’t including the DNC totals then, so we should not include the DNC totals in assessing the likelihood of the President raising a billion (or 750 million) dollars now. Unless, of course, the Democrats just want to admit that they’re not going to raise even close to the same amount of money this go-round. So, what are the real target numbers ? Well, so far the President has personally raised almost $47 million this year. In the 2008 cycle Obama raised almost $104 million in his first year, or about 13.43% of his total haul. Depending on whether you’re holding the President to that one billion number or not, Obama thus has to either raise $134 or $101 million in 2011 in order to have a year comparable to 2007′s. That makes his target number either $34 or $25 million for 3Q 2011. This is not out of reach for the President; remember, his 1Q 2011 was extremely bad, when compared to 2007′s (not surprising). The real problem for Obama is 2012 . The problem for OfA is that if you concede that they should be judged in 2011 by 2007′s numbers then it’s fair to judge them in 2012 by 2008′s. And Obama’s quarterly goal for that , again depending on whether it’s one billion or $750 million, would have to average $216 or $162 million a quarter ($72/54 million a month). Put it another, less math-y way: Barack Obama is going to have to duplicate the mass wave of Messianic euphoria that propelled his fundraising to such heights in the last election. But to do that he needs to get access to donors. Lots and lots of donors. And now you know why the President wants your five dollars. It’s not for bragging rights and it’s not because your five bucks will make a difference; it’s because with your five bucks comes your contact information, and anybody who sends Obama money now may reliably expect in the future to be essentially spammed by the President every day, starting probably in June. To sum up: President Obama is – through dint of hard effort – so far managing to stay more or less on track with his fundraising brags; but this year is the easy part. Next year Obama’s going to have to more or less triple his game, and there’s not really any indication so far that the President is on track to replicate 2008′s, and I use the term deliberately, magic. Which I suspect that the OfA campaign team kind of knows. All of this should be reflected in the video that OfA puts together in a couple of weeks to spin the 3Q 2011 results: you should expect that Jim Messina will spend most of it again talking about all the people that OfA has signed up and speaking very little about how much money that OfA has raised. And you should also expect spam next year. Lots and lots and lots of spam. At levels undreamed of by the minds of mortal men. Moe Lane ( crosspost )
The rest is here:
A Primer for the 3Q Obama for America (OfA) numbers.
Ames, Iowa — Late this afternoon Tim Pawlenty appeared a few blocks from the Hilton Coliseum on the so-called Greek Triangle, a patch of land in the middle of a three-way intersection in a neighborhood full of Iowa State University fraternity and sorority houses. Students for Pawlenty was holding a pizza party, attracting a healthy-sized crowd. Pawlenty gave a relatively brief speech (it would have been a mistake to go on too long with the 82 degree sun beating down) and encouraged the crowd, most of them ISU students, to turn out at the Straw Poll. Are college students really interested in taking time out of a Saturday to think about politics? Though the crowd did seem fairly engaged, it was hard not to suspect that the vast majority of them had just stopped by for free pizza. Indeed, Pawlenty’s pitch emphasized the free food that will be served at his tent tomorrow, where tickets to the straw poll will be given away; it is by now a cliche to note that this amiably undisguised bribery is a hallmark of the Ames Straw Poll. A Students for Pawlenty representative announced that they’d be running shuttles from the Greek Triangle to the Pawlenty tent every half hour for much of the day tomorrow; it will be interesting to see how full those shuttles turn out to be. It sounds a bit silly — come for free ice cream and vote for me! — but this is what it means in practice when we say that Ames is a test of organizational strength. Ames is make-or-break for Pawlenty because if he doesn’t make a splash, his fundraising will quickly dry up. Whether or not Pawlenty’s undergraduate fans can get enough bodies in those shuttles to make a difference — and, by extension, whether or not other parts of Pawlenty’s organizational machine are similarly effective — will be a signal to donors as to whether or not money given to the Pawlenty campaign would be wasted.
Continue reading here:
The Politics of Free Food
Deal of the century! (Daily Mail) — The economy is threatening collapse despite the emergency debt legislation he signed off yesterday. So, with hindsight, President Obama rushing off for a lavish 50th birthday party in his honour – starring Dreamgirls singer Jennifer Hudson – was probably not the most sensitive idea. There has been speculation for days as to whether the President was going to make it to his own fundraising 50th birthday party – a plush affair at a $40,000 a night ballroom in Chicago. But with the President signing off the debt deal yesterday after the bill went through the Senate at the last minute, it finally appears as if the party is back on. Tickets for the fundraising dinner cost an astonishing $35,800 a person. Additional contributions of $50 will gain entry to the concert with limited seating, while $1,000 donors receive ‘premium’ seats for President Obama’s birthday. $10,000 tickets include ‘preferred’ seating along with the chance to take a photograph with Obama.
Read the original here:
For His Birthday, Obama’s Only Going To Charge $10,000 For A Photo…
Yes, I can read. I can count and use a spreadsheet, too. That’s why I’m saying it was a bad quarter. Executive summary: Obama for America’s (OfA) reported fundraising total for the second quarter is significantly less than what it needed to be in order to hit OfA’s stated ultimate fundraising goals for 2012 – as in, one half to one-third of what they need. And OfA is (grimly) aware of this, which is why they significantly downplayed their fundraising totals in their latest video, despite the fact that in raw terms the amount raised by OfA (47 million) looked highly respectable. Which they were: just not respectable enough . First off, all numbers here assume a raw total of forty seven million, which is what is being reported in the media * as Obama for America’s take (as the below should make clear the DNC’s numbers should not be taken into consideration when assessing the President’s fundraising goal**). Now that this has been noted… OK, let’s walk through some numbers, here. Below the fold is a chart showing the amount of money that Obama for America raised in the 2008 election cycle. The links are all to official reports filed with the Federal Elections Commission, so I certainly hope that they’re accurate: Raised 1st $ 25,791,503 2nd $ 33,103,605 3rd $ 21,381,425 4th $ 23,526,004 Jan $ 36,826,706 Feb $ 56,782,851 Mar $ 42,857,773 April $ 31,922,905 May $ 23,400,729 Jun $ 54,284,539 Jul $ 51,449,094 Aug $ 68,838,094 Sep $ 153,148,585 Pre $ 39,026,984 Post $ 110,808,267 $ 773,149,065 Note: those totals are just for Obama for America . That’s completely independent of whatever the DNC did, and it comes to almost three-quarters of a billion dollars in twenty-two months. Originally, the campaign had made the fairly grandiose claim that they were going to hit a billion dollars this go-round; they’ve since scaled it back to seven hundred fifty million (and hoped that nobody would notice that this actually represents less money than they collected in 2008). One billion (or seven hundred fifty million) over twenty-two months (not twenty-three: the election will be at the beginning of November, remember?) works out to OfA needing to bring in just over one hundred thirty-six million (or almost one hundred three million) per quarter, or just under forty-five and a half million (or thirty million) per month. Now here’s the second set of numbers: actual fundraising to date. Raised Pro-Rated % Pro-Rated % 1st $ 2,330,708 $ 136,363,636 1.71% $ 102,272,727 2.28% 2nd $47,000,000 $ 136,363,636 34.47% $ 102,272,727 45.96% ‘Pro-Rated’ is the raw quarterly amount needed to hit either fundraising goal; ‘%’ is what percentage of the raw quarterly goal the campaign actually hit. As you can see, the Obama campaign had a rotten first quarter… which was excusable; while they started extremely early for an incumbent, they’re starting late by the standards of the 2008 election cycle. They still need to make that money up somehow*** if they want to hit either target number, but that’s their problem, not mine. Nobody forced them to pick the more media-friendly goal of an absolute total number over the more realistic one of ‘replicating the flow of the last campaign cycle.’ At any rate, the second quarter is more representative, in a lot of ways. Note that OfA did do better in 2Q 2011 than it did in 2Q 2007… but in terms of where they needed to be to keep on track with hitting their goal they got at best less than one half of what they promised, and at worst about one third. Can they make it up, later? Sure! – But the Obama campaign is not happy about this number… which is why they spent most of this Jim Messina OfA video not talking about their actual fundraising numbers. When a second quarter fundraising report doesn’t bring up a hard number until three and a half minutes into a four and three quarters video, you can safely assume that somebody in Obama’s campaign has a spreadsheet on his or her workstation that looks a heck of a lot like the one I used to write this post. Admittedly, I’m probably happier to see mine. Moe Lane ( crosspost ) *As usual, Jim Geraghty and I are having a race to see who can get a similar thought up first. He won this one. **If people would like to include those numbers, consider this: if Obama’s one billion/seven hundred fifty million fundraising goal is supposed to include the DNC’s total when 2008′s baseline did not, then we have another story here. One with the title “Democrats admit failure to recreate 2008 magic.” ***An outside observer might be tempted at this point to note that I am perhaps unfairly making the assumption that the OfA campaign needs to hit the same fixed fundraising number every quarter/month; after all, there’s an ebb and flow to the campaign cycle. So let’s look at that… OK, crunching the numbers it looks like OfA picked up about 13.43% of its fundraising totals in the first year (just under one hundred four million). Pro-rate that to the new seven hundred fifty million goal, comes out to one hundred and three quarters million; divide that in half, comes out to fifty million and change… nope, OfA is still under-performing, if barely. And note that one of the assumptions there is that Barack Obama is somehow going to fully replicate the 2008 fundraising hysteria, which is not going to happen. If it was going to happen, the President would not have started fundraising so extremely early for an incumbent.
See the article here:
Obama’s bad fundraising quarter.
