Whatever you think of Obama's decision not to accept federal campaign money, the $300 million or so he may raise through private contributions is some serious money.

It will enable him to outspend McCain by more than a 3:1 margin.

And, I must say, his first real ad of the national contest is dynamite.

Does McCain stand a chance on the money difference alone?

Hi Coldfuse:

If Obama doesn't win in November it will be the greatest screwup in political history.

People hate the war,gas is at an all time high ,as are home foreclosures,unemployment is up,food prices are up,McCain is old,even many Republicans aren't excited about McCain...and yet

Obama is only up by 4 points in the polls.

How do you explain that???

Something else is going on.

hippolips

I wish campaign laws were different so that this could be prevented, but they are not. I would prefer a limit, with matching federal dollars, along with a limit on any group spending money promoting any candidate, but that would infringe on that groups freedom of speech. So we are stuck with the status quo.

Under the existing laws, it make sense for Obama to do this. (Remember that McCain also tried to have it both ways during the primaries.)

While I don't think that money alone can win for a bad candidate, I think that it is a huge factor, even for a bad candidate. And Obama is hardly a bad candidate. This huge difference in available cash with not only allow Obama to put up far more ads that McCain, but, more importantly allow him to press flesh with more and to speak to more. I think that this is what will make a huge difference, more than any single part of the upcoming campaign. The more people Obama gets to speak to, the more people get to see and hear him, the more converts he will make. Any good speaker has this favor going for him, and Obama is a very good speaker. His speeches are among the best I have ever heard in a presidential campaign. There are always fewer independents walking out of an Obama speech than there were going in. Since most if not all, polls show Obama will a lead now, this bodes ill for McCain. He does not have that charisma, certainly not on Obama's level. If anything can be said to have sealed the deal this early in a campaign, this is it. Barring the unforeseen, and the bump that every candidate gets after his party's convention, I think the high point for McCain's chances is now in his past, and now it will be all downhill for him.

Obama received a much smaller bump than is historically expected after sewing up the apparent nomination (similar to Dole's in 1996). This may in part be due to the 30% or so of Hillary supporters who are either cold or lukewarm about Obama, though I think the majority of those will end up in his camp.

Beyond Obama's strong base of support among blacks and young people, he may need the additional money. His strengths, in some respects, are also his weaknesses. On the one hand he is a young, refreshing, energizing voice; on the other, we don't know him that well, yet. His support is subject to more volatile swings with voters in the political center.

With $300 million, Obama has an opportunity to make those in the center feel more comfortable, to attract younger conservative voters and, perhaps, to make a case to the political right (where McCain is weak).

quote:

Originally posted by hippolips:
Hi Coldfuse:

If Obama doesn't win in November it will be the greatest screwup in political history.

People hate the war,gas is at an all time high ,as are home foreclosures,unemployment is up,food prices are up,McCain is old,even many Republicans aren't excited about McCain...and yet

Obama is only up by 4 points in the polls.

How do you explain that???

Something else is going on.

hippolips

Up only 4 points in the polls...

Barack Obama can give great speeches about change And a gifted speaker, he is. The problem is without that tele-prompter, he is lost. Ask him questions, the poor guy is totally lost. He has a very hard time coming up with answers.

And this change he is proposing, is really nothing new. Just the same old Democrat Party ideas that have already been tried & failed before. Nothing new or original.

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
a limit on any group spending money promoting any candidate, but that would infringe on that groups freedom of speech.

How? That's exactly what we do in Britain. There's no point in any action group, supporters, interested parties, any one at all, promoting any candidate. That's because any such expenditure is included in the calculation of the party's expenditure, which they aren't allowed to exceed.It's very tightly limited too. The two major parties, and their candidates, end up spending the same amount.(We do have laws which restrict the amount of airtime that parties get, too, so each of them gets the same length of 'party political broadcasting' on TV and radio)

What is the fairness in an election where one candidate may swamp the electorate with advertising and the other cannot? Advertising works, otherwise nobody would advertise.

It is not 'freedom of speech' to be allowed to shout louder or more often than someone else. Some countries have elections where the governing party restricts the access of the opposition to the media.What's the difference between a party getting greater exposure de facto by decree or interference and getting it by being allowed greater exposure through expense on advertising?

Apparently, what might be significant is how Obama raised his money - in small donations via the Internet:

'The alchemy of social networking and the presidential race has given Obama claim to some of the most fabulous numbers in politics: 750,000 active volunteers, 8,000 affinity groups, and 30,000 events. But the most important number, and the clue to how Obama’s machine has transformed the contours of politics, is the number of people who have contributed to his campaign—particularly the flood of small donors. Much of Clinton’s haul, and McCain’s, too, has come from the sort of people accustomed to being wooed in the living room, and Obama initially relied on them, too. But while his rivals continued to depend on big givers, Obama gained more and more small donors, until they finally eclipsed the big ones altogether. In February, the Obama campaign reported that 94 percent of their donations came in increments of $200 or less, versus 26 percent for Clinton and 13 percent for McCain. Obama’s claim of 1,276,000 donors through March is so large that Clinton doesn’t bother to compete; she stopped regularly providing her own number last year.

“If the typical Gore event was 20 people in a living room writing six-figure checks,” Gorenberg told me, “and the Kerry event was 2,000 people in a hotel ballroom writing four-figure checks, this year for Obama we have stadium rallies of 20,000 people who pay absolutely nothing, and then go home and contribute a few dollars online.”' The Amazing Money Machine

Finding lots of small donors is surely better news for democracy than soliciting a few big, fat checks, isn't it?