{"id":67,"date":"2008-10-21T08:29:52","date_gmt":"2008-10-21T08:29:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/10\/150-million-a-palin-september.html"},"modified":"2008-10-21T08:29:52","modified_gmt":"2008-10-21T08:29:52","slug":"150-million-a-palin-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/10\/150-million-a-palin-september.html","title":{"rendered":"$150 million: a Palin September, the Perfect Storm"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is simply beyond adjective and superlative and entering into utterly transcendent territory: Obama raised $150 million in September:<\/p>\n

Barack Obama<\/span>
\nraised more than $150 million in September, a stunning and
\nunprecedented eruption of political giving that has given him a wide
\nspending advantage over rival John McCain<\/span>.<\/p>\n

The
\nDemocrat’s campaign released the figure Sunday, one day before it must
\nfile a detailed report of its monthly finances with the Federal Election Commission<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Obama’s
\nmoney is fueling a vast campaign operation in an expanding field of
\ncompetitive states. It also has underwritten a wave of both national
\nand targeted video advertising unseen before in a presidential contest.<\/p>\n

Campaign manager David Plouffe<\/span>,
\nin an e-mail to supporters Sunday morning, said the campaign had added
\n632,000 new donors in September, for a total of 3.1 million
\ncontributors to the campaign<\/b>. He said the average donation was $86<\/b>.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Obama’s monthly figure pushed his total fundraising to $605 million. No presidential candidate<\/span> has ever run such an expensive campaign. His campaign raised $65 million in August, his previous best.<\/p>\n

“The
\noverall numbers obviously are impressive,” Plouffe said in a campaign
\nvideo. “But it’s what’s beneath the numbers in terms of average
\nAmericans who have had enough, who want a change and who are really
\nfueling this campaign<\/b>.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I think Obama’s campaign needs to send Sarah Palin some roses. It’s clear that Palin’s selection by McCain sent a shock wave of alarm throughout the political world, given how woefully unqualified Palin is for any national office whatsoever (as her interviews with Katie Couric have painfully demonstrated). Even Colin Powell was uncharacteristically blunt<\/a> in assessing Palin’s qualifications:<\/p>\n

…he said McCain’s choices in the last few weeks — especially his
\nselection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his vice presidential
\nrunning mate — had raised questions in his mind about McCain’s
\njudgment.<\/p>\n

“I don’t believe [Palin] is ready to be president of the United
\nStates,” Powell said flatly. By contrast, Obama’s running mate, Sen.
\nJoe Biden of Delaware, “is ready to be president on day one.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Millions of ordinary Americans reacted much the same way, wondeirng just how “Country First” McCain could possibly have made such an ill-advised, blatantly political pick for his Veep, and realizing just what it implied about McCain’s judgement and priorities. In hindsight, the signs were clear that Palin was triggering an avalanche of donations to Obama, but no one could have predicted such a titanic windfall of small-donor support.<\/p>\n

It must be said that this represents an absolute and total vindication of the Howard Dean campaign, and manager Joe Trippi’s vision of “The Perfect Storm”. On May 17th, 2003, Joe Trippi posted a blog entry at the unofficial Dean Nation weblog entitled simply, The Perfect Storm<\/a>. In that post, since reprinted many times elsewhere, he wrote like the prophet he is:<\/p>\n

never
\n— until now — would there ever have been any hope of 1 million
\nAmericans contributing $100 each to take back their country and promote
\na common vision for the future of the nation. Maybe it will be 2
\nmillion who contribute $50. But the Internet makes that possible. Or
\nmaybe it will be 5 million Americans contributing $20. The tools,
\nenergy, leadership and the right candidate, are all in place to create
\nthe Perfect Storm of Presidential politics — where millions of
\nAmericans act together and organize their communities, their
\nneighborhoods and their precincts. It is ironic I think that the
\nPerfect Storm may indeed be made possible by the internet — but in the
\nend the real storm it may create is the largest grassroots\/election day
\nget-out-the-vote — shoe leather\/door knocking organization in the
\nhistory of American politics.<\/p>\n

I have said before that it sounds audacious. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Audacious indeed. But witness the audacity of hope. Trippi’s vision has been realized, far more than he could ever have imagined. Where the Dean campaign broke the trail, the Obama campaign has laid shinkansen<\/a><\/i> tracks. Obama surpassed the 1-million-donor mark<\/a> back during the primary in February, and now the total is three times that number. <\/p>\n

Forget the rhetoric about campaign finance reform – the Obama campaign, like the Dean campaign before it<\/a>, IS campaign finance reform. As GOP technocrat Patrick Ruffini notes ruefully<\/a>, “public finance in the general election is dead, dead, dead.” <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Any nominee from now on can safely opt out because the
\nInternet makes it for the public to massively participate. If we had
\nnot had a nominee with such misguided instincts on campaign finance
\nreform, Republicans probably would have figured this out this time.
\nMcCain raised $47 million in August, or 71% of Obama’s total, and he
\nraised $10 million in 2 days because of Sarah Palin. Had this trend
\ncontinued into September, McCain would have raised over $100 million
\nfor the month. By the time the McCain campaign figured out it was
\npossible to excite the base, it was too late. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ruffini is correct. No candidate, Republican or Democrat, will ever accept federal matching funds again. But what’s more important is how<\/i> Obama will use the money: to redraw the electoral map, not just to win reliably blue states and tip the battleground states, but to actively encroach on once-solidly Red Republican territory. Consider that Obama is within 4 points of McCain in Montana and dead even in North Dakota<\/a>. There’s a real possibility of a new “sagebrush rebellion<\/a>” in the Mountain West – and even in the old Confederacy, where West Virginia and even Georgia are in play. This is all possible because of Howard Dean, who as chairman of the DNC has pursued a “50-state strategy”, putting Democratic Party offices in every state, no matter how deep red – and laying the groundwork for Obama’s campaign to set up shop. <\/p>\n

This is truly a new kind of politics, and a transformative election. We really are at the cusp of something new, and grand, and exciting. Will it be a $200 million October? And a 400 EV victory in November? We will find out, in less than three weeks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is simply beyond adjective and superlative and entering into utterly transcendent territory: Obama raised $150 million in September: Barack Obama raised more than $150 million in September, a stunning and unprecedented eruption of political giving that has given him a wide spending advantage over rival John McCain. The Democrat’s campaign released the figure Sunday,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[117,116,38,69,118,95],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-purple-politics","tag-50-state-strategy","tag-fundraising","tag-obama","tag-palin","tag-perfect-storm","tag-presidential-election"],"yoast_head":"\n$150 million: a Palin September, the Perfect Storm - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"$150 million: a Palin September, the Perfect Storm - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is simply beyond adjective and superlative and entering into utterly transcendent territory: Obama raised $150 million in September: Barack Obama raised more than $150 million in September, a stunning and unprecedented eruption of political giving that has given him a wide spending advantage over rival John McCain. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}