Interesting article in this month's Atlantic:
To understand how Obama’s war chest has grown so rapidly, it helps to think of his Web site as an extension of the social-networking boom that has consumed Silicon Valley over the past few years. The purpose of social networking is to connect friends and share information, its animating idea being that people will do this more readily and comfortably when the information comes to them from a friend rather than from a newspaper or expert or similarly distant authority they don’t know and trust. The success of social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace and, later, professional networking sites like LinkedIn all but ensured that someday the concept would find its way into campaigning. A precursor, Meetup.com, helped supporters of Howard Dean organize gatherings during the last Democratic primary season, but compared with today’s sites, it was a blunt instrument.
The true killer app on My.BarackObama.com is the suite of fund-raising tools. You can, of course, click on a button and make a donation, or you can sign up for the subscription model, as thousands already have, and donate a little every month. You can set up your own page, establish your target number, pound your friends into submission with e-mails to pony up, and watch your personal fund-raising “thermometer” rise. “The idea,” Rospars says, “is to give them the tools and have them go out and do all this on their own.” The organizing principle behind Obama’s Web site, in other words, is the approach Mark Gorenberg used with such success—only scaled to such a degree that it has created an army of more than a million donors and raisers.
The social-networking model provided Obama with something that insurgents before him, from Gary Hart to McCain, always lacked: a means of capturing excitement and translating it into money. In the 2004 primary, Howard Dean raised $27 million online. Obama is fast approaching $200 million.
So there you go.
My social network was the blogosphere--not especially driven by money, and certainly not by "excitement"--which, once it became an extension of My.BarackObama.com, became a remarkably less pleasant, and effective, place all round.
No doubt, with the institutionalization of the Obama Movement, we'll be seeing more friends "pound[ed] into submission." Rather like a permanent campaign. What could go wrong?
To the victors...
UPDATE Of course, if I were smart, I would have joined up. But there you go.
UPDATE One forgets that there are people who simply can't join this social network, by definition. One might almost think of them as disenfranchised. And, as housing prices rise in the cities, likely to remain so.
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Joe Rospars
worked on the Dean campaign so he would have known how to take what the Dean campaign used and build on that for the Obama campaign.
I think there are other former Dean staffers working for Obama.
Whatever
This has been around since 2004. Nothing new here. I swear, Obama can sneeze and the media will try to make it look like he invented the sneeze.
The question is, what is Obama's average donation, excluding merchandise sales? My haunch is that people will be surprised.
Only tyrants rig elections.
No the average donation is low-ish
Check the article. But I'd be interested to know what that average conceals.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
This sounds like a way to launder illegal campaign donations
Set up fake personas with matching paypal-type accounts and then funnel the money to a candidate.
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“A true friend stabs you from the front” -Oscar Wilde
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“I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” - Will Rogers
Now that is a suitably paranoid thought
I can't believe they don't have safeguards in place, since the Dean people are old hands.
Nevertheless, quis custodiet ipses -- and isnt the FEC defunct right now?
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Try this for paranoid
If someone used your information to donate money to a candidate, how would you know?
People check their bank statements for unauthorized withdrawls and credit card bills for bogus charges, and some check their credit histories for identity theft, but what if someone was using a database to launder campaign donations?
Follow the money" - Deep Throat
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“A true friend stabs you from the front” -Oscar Wilde
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“I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” - Will Rogers
Look up your name
on OpenSecrets.org
Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
- Sir William Drummond
You can check, but how many will?
And does anyone verify those names are all real people?
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“A true friend stabs you from the front” -Oscar Wilde
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“I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” - Will Rogers
Bingo
I don't buy Obama's online fundraising claims at all. If he had half the number of small donors he claims -- the race wouldn't even be close. Think about it... how is it that he has more small donors than the number of people who've voted? There is also simply too much money involved. Two candidates in the same party are not both raising unprecedented amounts of cash.
My guess is what others have stated, already. This is the 'digital age' and Obama is supported by entities like google, bellsouth, comcast, etc. that have access to databases filled with names and addresses. Who wants to bet that there are tons of old people and others identified as 'low risk' who have only basic phone service (no internet and basic cable) that have 'donated' to the Obama campaign. All they have to do is donate using their names and addresses and these folks are none the wiser. The access to the info is everywhere and the temptation is too great.
The vast majority of Americans are horribly ignorant of politics and have never donated to a single campaign and of those how many of the ones that aren't ignorant have access, inclination, and know-how to check if someone has donated in their name? No way. Our personal information is being used by these corps and it's everywhere. The average citizen's info. which is in the hands of thousands of corps is being used to bundle and the 'youth movement' and 'social networking' aspects which most adults and reporters don't understand is providing cover.
This is simply the new version of bundling.
PB 2.0 - Supplement the wonk!
Take away merchandising...
I'm too lazy to look up the numbers, but way early on I remember reading that Obama included merchandise sales as donations. Yeah, OK, buying something means you like the guy. It doesn't, however, necessarily equate to supporting him. I know tons of people who collect political stuff. But even ignoring that, buying merchandise is less of a donation than outright giving in my book. Some may not agree with that, but that's how I see it.
Way back before January, I remember calculating that something like 200,000 "donors" likely "contributed" by buying merchandise. This was way back when he had on the order of 500-700k donors. I blew it off initially because it was such a small fraction of the total donation money. Here's how it works:
Something has always been fishy to me about Obama's fundraising numbers. If Obama were truly getting the numbers he is attributed, then he should be running away with the popular vote. It should not be close. And if he continues to get all these new donors, why has Hillary gotten more votes over the last 2+ months? Donors aren't everything, but if the "small donors" are increasing as rapidly as I'm told, Obama's support should be on a completely upward trajectory, not stagnate or on the decline as it currently is according to the votes.
Only tyrants rig elections.
merchandising, small donors, what's the diff?
from the nyt, and so long ago that likely everyone's forgotten about it:
i particularly like that last sentence: no other campaign is known to have listed paraphernalia sales as donations.
$5 for a ticket?!!?
Hell it was $25 when he came here in before the primary started(I admit it, I tried to go).
Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
- Sir William Drummond
you what?!?!?
i would have tried to go too, actually, and not as oppo research either. fortunately, being a floridian, i didn't have to. ;)
From Taylor Marsh
"I am one of many who immediately received a request for funds for Edwards' pet project just after the endorsement. But I am not a subscriber to any of his stuff. Where did he get my name, and how did he get this mailing out so fast? This bears exploring, I think. I build websites for a living, and I can tell you that getting a huge mass mailing out like this is no small task. It is very server intensive, and a list of that size would require quite a few servers to be crunching those emails out in order to get them all to their destinations as quickly as these did. Did he get the list from the DNC? I used to be on their list, but unsubscribed after they started being so biased toward HRC. I also signed up a long time ago onto barack's website so I could look around. So it may have been BO's list. I have never received any solicitations from him, however. Is this the deal Edwards made with Obama? - MB"
I didn't get one of those mendicant emails, but then again I don't give out my real email to hardly anyone. But if Edwards sold out in order to get his fundraising spread via Omail, I'm still disgusted with him, and really disgusted with Obama for requiring that price of him.
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“A true friend stabs you from the front” -Oscar Wilde
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“I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” - Will Rogers
That's new
Everyone who I saw talking about it yesterday had been on Edwards email list.
Hmmm?
Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
- Sir William Drummond
I got one
and it came from JohnEdwards.com so I concluded I'd gotten it because I was an Edwards supporter who signed up to get his campaign's e-mails.
I can't imagine any names coming from the DNC so it may have come from the Obama campaign.
Obviously part of the deal...
its pretty obvious at this point that getting access to Obama's donor list was part of the deal here -- and that Edwards gave Obama his donor list as well.
I find it interesting how Obama has "commodified" his supporters -- with each passing day, it becomes more obvious that Obama's support in the Democratic establishment has nothing to do with Obama the candidate, and everything to do with Obama the ATM.
In fact, I wish I knew more about photoshop, because somebody should create a picture of prominent democrats standing in line in front of a picture of Barack Obama that has an ATM screen on his chest, and money coming out of his mouth -- because money is his only message to these people...
The whole Edwards endorsement and the surrounding events
smell very questionable. Not that I thought he was endorsing Obama because he loves him. In fact, I feel better that Edwards did the endorsement for money and possibly positioning for a post - VP, Czar of Poverty. It just confirms my jaded view of politics especially Obama.
Hopey changy.
I love this job!
I love this job!
I'm wondering what, if anything, does Edwards get out of
this college for everyone initiative. Again, this is just my jaded view of politics but I can't imagine his motives are totally altruistic.
I love this job!
I love this job!
What Edwards gets out of it...
A second act.
Think of Edwards life as a broadway musical... Act One was his life up through the Democratic convention in 2004...
Act Two opens was supposed to be the story of his comeback -- but that didn't work. Now he needs a new story line, because without a good second act, the whole production will be a bomb.
Obama called him Tues night to ask,
one of his staffers said earlier on MSNBC...all the MSNBC people laughed at him.
I never signed up for Obama's mailing list...
and unsubscribed from Edwards long, long ago when he contributed to opening the sexism gates (yes, he and Obama are the ones who helped start it all). How'd I get the fundraising email?
Only tyrants rig elections.
the presidency as a silicon valley start--up
i have read that article a couple of times over the last week. here is the quote that i gag on each time i read it:
the speaker (roos) is a lawyer, the ceo of a leading law firm in the area, probably +- 45 years and the head of obama fund raising in the area
from "the atlantic":
[Furthermore, in Silicon Valley’s unique reckoning, what everyone else considered to be Obama’s major shortcomings—his youth, his inexperience—here counted as prime assets.
I asked Roos, the personification of a buttoned-down corporate attorney, if there had been concerns about Obama’s limited CV, and for a moment he looked as if he might burst out laughing. “No one in Silicon Valley sits here and thinks, ‘You need massive inside-the-Beltway experience,’” he explained, after a diplomatic pause. “Sergey and Larry were in their early 20s when they started Google. The YouTube guys were also in their 20s. So were the guys who started Facebook. And I’ll tell you, we recognize what great companies have been built on, and that’s ideas, talent, and inspirational leadership.” ]
you got that?
the presidency of the united states is equivalent to a start-up. a bright, enerjetic leader who talks a good line to venture capitalists and bingo
you've got yourself a presidential corporation going.
amazing.
and so simple.
could anyone be stupider than roos? yeah, probably.
and they are probably sellin' smoke for The Obama Presidency, inc.
no doubt an isp will be forthcoming in the next few months.
Social Networking or mailing lists
Don't take the Atlantic article too seriously. Someone there discovered the term "social networking" and thought that it's the best thing since sliced rye bread. Social Networks are different from mailing lists by having a dynamic nature and they may contain personalized information. It still requires a lot of hard work to get money out of it.
Obama has money because he represents rich people. Hillary doesn't have money because blue collar workers and Hispanics, for instance, tend to have less money. Granted, her campaign may be way behind newer technologies. After all, Mark Penn is a dinosaur.
Obama also has a large number of investment bankers behind him (they can recognize a Republican when they see one).
KoshemBos
gqmartinez
I'm wondering about the donations too. He's been losing support, yet the fundraising continues to break records. Why? I know that some of his supporters are on auto-donate, and that wouldn't drop off. But WHY are the Big Money People still so in love with him.
tonight's fundraiser in Chicago--
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/05/...
-- and her headline is wrong-- a pic costs $5,000.
He had way too much money from the start
How does a virtual unknown raise tha kind of money he had even before Iowa?
Guys like Dodd, Biden and (grrrr) Edwards were scraping and struggling for bus fare while Obama was spending money like he had a printing press.
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“A true friend stabs you from the front” -Oscar Wilde
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“I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” - Will Rogers
Obama Creates Social Network, Clinton Creates Senate War Room
Via eriposte, Clinton was key proponent in creating the Senate's war room, http://hill6.thehill.com/leading-the-new...
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
But WHY are the Big Money
But WHY are the Big Money People still so in love with him.
There is a lot of money (in the form of treasury bonds) in the Social Security trust fund. Wall Street greatly desires it. And in the same way that only Nixon can go to China, only a Democrat can turn the Social Security trust fund over to Wall Street. That is the main chance, the big score.
plus these reasons--
he wants energy subsidies to continue, including ethanol.
he promises to make the military more hi-tech and to add soldiers, which equals billions in contracts.
he says that nothing will happen until he system changes--which means the status quo is what we end up with along with continued money/laws for big business.
"bringing people together" and "unity" includes them, which means they win, as usual.
he's more than proved he'll deliver for them-from Rezko and others in IL, to his support for Cheney's energy bill and giant money for giant corps for Ethanol in DC, and for continued no-strings war funding, etc.
and he won't punish lawbreakers--
or do any of that "divisive" stuff, of course--he won't sic the DOJ or any agency on any corporation.
Hart '84
Wasn't Gary Hart's demographic called "Atari Democrats"? Melding whatever passes for high-tech and its (purported) concomitant social ethos is already a generation old.
Donors have to reach $250 in donations to be recorded on the
donor watch sites --probably based on FEC reporting requirements. iirc.
That's interesting....
Does any contribution, no matter how small, need to be recorded? From the PayPal API documentation:
Meaning that you could automate the whole process on the client side. You don't have to register to donate (see here, where, unbelievably, obnoxiously, and typically, you come to a page with the sound -- Obama speaking -- already on, and you can turn it down, but not all the way). Somebody could submit a billion dollars a buck at a time with nobody the wiser under one fake name, though it would be smarter to vary the amounts, the timing, the names and so on -- all of which could be scripted.
So, whoever said my.barackobama.com could be a giant money laundering scheme might well be right. No record under $250, scripted submissions, make sure there aren't any unsightly spikes not related to media events -- hmmm -- and voila.
I'd really like to be wrong about this. Can somebody correct?
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Maybe I wasn't paranoid enough
Lots of small donations (under $250) would drive down the average too.
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“A true friend stabs you from the front” -Oscar Wilde
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“I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” - Will Rogers
That would...
Trigger a lot of alarms inside PayPal even if nowhere else.
That's the trick in money laundering
don't trigger any alarms.
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“A true friend stabs you from the front” -Oscar Wilde
x
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“I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” - Will Rogers
PayPal is only the proof of concept
They have their own system. What PayPal proves, with the API, is that you could automate the process entirely, from the submit button all the way to the bank. What I don't know is the records keeping requirement. Does anyone know more than the under $250 requirement?
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Howcum under ActBlue
I have to give everything up to my bra size, but Obama can use PayPal without full ID and registration of each donor?
I had to attest that I was a US citizen and was giving the correct data about my ID and job, for Pete's sake. Is the fact he's not getting Federal campaign matching funds part of this dispensation from the FEC, or is it the commission's deliberate wreckage and toothlessness this year?
And this reminds me how much I gag when someone criticizes Clinton for using her own cash. At least we know how she got it; nearly 8 years of investigation taught us that.
AND -- PayPal is connected to eBay which is connected to the venture capitalists who want Obama to be their Manchurian fellow. PayPal used to own a bank (a company in the ass-end of CO), and got authority to issue credit cards and manage money market accounts. I wonder if the OCC in its newly-found prosecutorial zeal has explored whether PayPal still has the right to act like a bank in processing transactions, but pleads exemption from money laundering rules...
Don't let anything dissuade you from these lines of inquiry.
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
I used to be a private investigator for a Public Defender
I was taught that when something doesn't seem right, that's where to start digging.
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“A true friend stabs you from the front” -Oscar Wilde
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“I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” - Will Rogers
WHY ? Big Money
There is a lot of money (in the form of treasury bonds) in the Social Security trust fund. Wall Street greatly desires it. And in the same way that only Nixon can go to China, only a Democrat can turn the Social Security trust fund over to Wall Street. That is the main chance, the big score.
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
Tipsheets on Investigating Campaign Finance Data
and other information can be found at http://www.campaignfinance.org
And I'm pretty sure that if they have information identifying small donors, the campaign has to aggregate the donations. But it's remarkably more difficult to find this info on the internet than I thought it would be. Maybe I'm just too tired to come up with the right search tonight.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
The network architecture of treason...
... can buy a president, at bargain rates.
The only reason it could be the Democratic candidate that would serve as proof of concept is that the GOP isn't associated with a net-savvy youth vote, so a social networking approach would look too suspicious.