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Obama Campaign Mgr MISLEADING Supporters?
Some of you may have already seen the "Dinner With Barack" e-mail from David Plouffe (Obama campaign manager). I just got back to my office and read it. This paragraph near the top caught my attention:
"In February alone, more than 94% of our donors gave in amounts of $200 or less. Meanwhile, campaign finance reports show that donations of $200 or less make up just 13% of Senator McCain's total campaign funds, and only 26% of Senator Clinton's."
Is he comparing apples and oranges in a fundamentally-misleading way? He seems to be counting donORS for Obama's campaign DURING FEBRUARY with donATIONS for Clinton and McCain through the ENTIRE CAMPAIGN.
1) Obviously, the number of small donORS vs. the total of the small donATIONS is VERY SKEWED.
2) Since most of the donors that max out probably maxed out before February, the apparent difference between using one (recent) month for Obama and the entire cycle for Clinton and McCain is VERY SKEWED.
I don't know for sure that that is what Plouffe is doing, but the carefully-worded paragraph certainly makes it appear so.
I hate it when ANY candidate/campaign uses math or logic that they must know is misleading. Clinton's campaign did it yesterday with the electoral college vote comparison, but there was at least some basis in logic for it. But, if Obama's campaign is doing what I think they are, then it is JUST misleading without any valid logical basis.
Comments (4)
I dunno about your points, but this article I read the other day certainly followed a different narrative than I have been reading in the liberal blogosphere:
Clinton Sees Rise in Online Donations
March 22, 2008 - By MICHAEL LUO - New York Times Technology Section
March 25, 2008 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
He is speaking in terms of amounts the donORS gave, ie, donations. It is perhaps misleading to compare February funding for Obama to the total campaign funds of the other candidates, but he is speaking about donations in both cases.
March 25, 2008 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Was going to reply to myself with this, which is accurate as of the January postings (was released too early to factor in February fundraising):
"Eighty percent of Clinton’s funds come from donations of $2,300 or above, versus only 60% for Obama. Obama is raising twice as much money from $200-499 donors as Clinton, while Clinton is raising three times as much from donors giving over $4,600."
But the graph in the NYT article linked ahead of my comment does a better job of describing it.
March 25, 2008 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, artappraiser and demosaur. So, that NYT article DOES likely prove my second point (can't be sure because the chart charts dollars and not donors). If you look at the Feb. 2008 numbers, approx 50-60% of both Clinton and Obama's DOLLARS are in small bites.
That doesn't match up with EITHER of Plouffe's stated percentages because for Obama he was measuring a percentage of DONORS (small/total) in Feb. And, for Clinton, he is apparently measuring her DOLLARS (small/total) for the entire cycle.
I don't think there is any way you accidentally pluck an apple from Obama's numbers, and a lemon from Clinton's.
That said, I am NOT trying to play tit-for-tat. If I had spied Wolfson or another Clinton poohbah trying the same thing, I would've called them on it, too. I am also not trying to compare it to Clinton's faulty Bosnia memory.
March 25, 2008 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
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