Thursday, October 04, 2007

"Deaniacs open their wallets for '08 hopefuls"

The Hill:
Donors who made Howard Dean the Democratic presidential front-runner ahead of the 2004 Iowa caucuses have flocked to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), helping him raise more money than any other White House candidate this year, according to a review of fundraising records.
During the first half of 2007, 634 Dean donors contributed $200 or more to Obama’s campaign. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Obama’s chief rival, collected such contributions from 413 Dean donors. Former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), who has tried to appeal to the Democrats’ liberal base with fiery rhetoric, collected contributions from 371 so-called Deaniacs.

The three Democratic candidates vying for the lead in the Iowa polls likely have received contributions from more Dean supporters, but an exact breakdown of their funding is unavailable because the law only requires campaigns to report contributions of $200 or more. Nevertheless, the giving patterns of larger donors provides an indication of the allegiances of Democrats responsible for Dean’s surprising surge to the front of the presidential pack in 2003.

The data was derived from a list of contributions made this year by former Dean donors compiled by the Federal Election Commission.

While more Dean donors have given to Obama, Clinton has raised money from Dean Democrats in larger increments. She has raised $945,000 from former Dean donors. Obama has raised $878,000. Data on contributions made in the third quarter of 2007 is not yet available.

Four years ago, Dean appealed chiefly to Democrats with college degrees and Democrats who strongly opposed the war in Iraq. This enabled him to raise unprecedented amounts of money via the Internet. At the end of 2003, Dean had raised a then-astonishing $41 million for his campaign. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who won the nomination, raised only $19.5 million for his campaign.

Obama also has found special appeal among college-educated Democrats who tend to earn higher-than-average incomes and Democrats who fiercely oppose the war. Obama reminded voters of his war stance Tuesday when he delivered a foreign policy address on the fifth anniversary of his speech opposing the invasion of Iraq.

Obama is the fundraising front-runner in 2007. He has raised $75 million for the Democratic primary. Clinton has raised $63 million.

As with Dean, Obama has raised much of his money through the Internet, more than any other candidate. And, also like Dean, Obama has raised his funds in small increments, a sign that Democratic enthusiasm for Obama is something like a movement. He has raised money from more than 350,000 Americans.

Obama’s spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said her candidate has appealed to many Americans, not just Dean supporters.

“Some donors have given to other candidates before, including Dean, Edwards, [former House Minority Leader Dick] Gephardt [D-Mo.] and Kerry, and many are contributing for the first time because they believe Obama will unite the country and bring an end to the war in Iraq.”

Psaki noted that Republicans are also supporting Obama’s campaign, including major donors to President Bush. She said that Bobby Stein, a Bush fundraising pioneer, has given to Obama.

A professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., Steven Smith, said that Obama has attracted many Dean donors because Clinton has positioned herself toward the political center with an eye on the general election.

“There’s no doubt that when the opening volleys of the Democratic primary were cast many months ago it looked like Senator Clinton was positioning herself to the right of the rest of the candidates,” Smith said. “There were stories that she had been doing so deliberately and that her aim was to win the general election and she wanted to moderate her image as much as she could.”

As a result, Smith said, many Democrats began looking for a liberal alternative. Edwards positioned himself to the left of Clinton in hopes of filling that role, but Obama supplanted him.

“When Edwards showed he couldn’t compete with Clinton, Obama stepped in and quickly championed the spectrum to the left of the Clinton,” Smith said.

In national polls, Obama scores about nine percentage points ahead of Edwards, according to Real Clear Politics, a website that compiles polling data. Clinton leads both by significant margins in national polls.

In Iowa, site of the first contest of the Democratic primary, the race is closer. Recent polls show on average 26.5 percent of Democrats support Clinton, 23 percent support Obama and 21.5 percent support Edwards, according to Real Clear Politics.

In 2003, Dean generated much support by running to the left of his rivals. At a Democratic National Committee meeting at the start of the race, Dean declared that he was running to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

The big question is whether Obama’s support will evaporate as Dean’s did. Despite enjoying a commanding lead in the polls two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Dean finished third, and his campaign never recovered.

Noam Scheiber, a senior editor at The New Republic who wrote the first national magazine profile of Obama in May of 2004, noted the similarities between Obama and Dean. As Dean did before him, Obama has stressed reforming the political process and shifting power to the masses from Washington insiders.

“[If] Dean had his way he would end these speeches,” Scheiber said. “He would say, ‘You guys are the campaign and I’m giving the campaign back to you,’ which is very similar to Obama. Obama often says, ‘This movement isn’t about me, it’s about all of you.’

“They were both very explicit about empowering people and disempowering Washington,” he added.

In January of 2004, after months of flirting with the prospect of Dean as the Democratic nominee, Iowa voters deserted him, deciding that Kerry would be more electable in November. Dean’s meltdown raises the question of whether Democrats will stick with Obama, or, for that matter, Clinton, whom some Democrats view as too polarizing.

“When Iowa voters sober up and have some concerns about Hillary, are they going to go to Obama or to Edwards because he’s a safe, Southern white guy?” said Scheiber.

Scheiber said that Obama’s organization in Iowa appears stronger than Dean’s proved to be. Obama had opened 29 campaign offices in the state by mid-July.

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