Campaign Finance Institute: Presidential Fundraising in 2007 Doubles 2003
If you look at the breakdown of contributions to each of the leading presidential candidates, it is striking how top-heavy Hillary's campaign fundraising is compared to both Obama and McCain.
According to the
Center for Responsive Politics, one-third of the contributions to Clinton (7,411 contributions) have come from donors who gave the maximum amount allowed by law - $4,600. This is compared to just 10 percent for Obama and 9 percent for McCain.
By contrast, McCain and Obama's percentage of contributions from donors who gave $200 or less is 22 percent and 26 percent, respectively. Hilary clocks in with only 12 percent of contributions coming from donors who gave less than $200.
And just as a point of reference, only 0.16 percent of adults in the U.S. give more than $200 in political donations in a given election cycle, so we are already talking about a relatively small group here.
As voters seek more substantive information about candidates in a wide-open and critically important Presidential race, the major media outlets lapse further into the widely reviled horse-race commentary that has become their hallmark, according to a new study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
The campaign coverage has been sharply at odds with what the public says it wants, the study found, with voters eager to know more about the candidates' positions on issues and their personal backgrounds, more about lesser-known candidates and more about the debates.
But the media is even more obsessed this time around with questions of tactics and strategy, despite what the study described as a "generational struggle" in both parties. Horse-race stories accounted for 63 percent of the stories this year compared with what the study said was about 55 percent in 2000 and 2004.
"If American politics is changing," the study concluded, "the style and approach of the American press does not appear to be changing with it."
I could not be less surprised by this study, and at the same time it still strikes me as an incredible disappointment. The traditional media--especially major television and cable outlets--seem mired in this race-to-the-bottom, lowest-common-denominator coverage that can't help but get hysterical about trivial items and that can't figure out how to delve into any issues of substance.
What about restoring the balance of powers and the rule of law as governed by the Constitution? What about fixing the broken elements of our election and campaign finance systems? What about health care and global warming and foreign policy? And yet 63% of the coverage is devoted to the latest poll from Iowa, or a haircut, or an ill-timed phone call. As if that is as important as how everyone in the country can be covered for health care? Please.
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