Not too many people mentioned the party apparatus at work in the fundraisng totals this week. In case some have forgotten, Howard Dean is still running a successful operation over at the DNC. Although a lot of the financial windfall for Democratic candidates can be attributed to Hillary, Obama and Edwards by themselves; it also helps to look at the big picture.
Democrats outraised Republicans by an outstanding $30 million dollars give or take. The only Republican to breach $20 million was Mitt Romney and most of his money came from big time donors. In fact, to reach his sum of $23 million, it only took 30,000 donors. On the Democratic side, Hillary's money machine got $25 million from 50,000 donors and Obama wowed everyone with an incredible 100,000 individual contributors.
All of these small time contributors can't all live in California and New York. This is a 50 state movement and the creator of it is Howard Dean. Old time Dems wanted to stick to the failing strategy of getting large donations from a select few of the so-called "Limousine Liberals." Howard blew the door on that and made the Democratic purse reflect the people that the Dems are meant to represent, the people.
Mole333 over at the Daily Gotham has more:
Well, the demise of the Democratic Party has been predicted for some time...and when Howard Dean became head of the DNC more people than ever predicted it would spell doom and destruction for the party of the Donkey.
Since then, we did unexpectedly well in 2005 elections (NYC aside). Then in 2006 we kicked ass. Now it is too early to say what 2008 will bring, but my gut feelings about our candidates vs. their candidates may be playing out in the most important arena there is: fundraising.
Exactly! The naysayers out there saw the end of time with Howard. The only end that came was their control on the party. Now that the people have the control, the money has and will continue to flow in and it won't be business as usual. It is always better to have 100,000 people donate $20 dollars rather than less than 1,000 wealthy people give the $2,300 maximum. Of course it is good to have those too, but to get the small time donations, the party actually has to appeal to them. When the candidates look, sound and formulate smart, progressive policies, everyone wins.
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