We’re Not a 50/50 Country; There WILL BE a Mandate

"Obama has already disappointed the Left time and again. When he wins, I hope and expect that he will govern from the center, and forge a coalition to keep us close through difficult times."

The left has some great ideas and the right has some great ideas. Obama will listen to a cross section of opinions when making decisions. He has shown a willingness in the past to negotiate with the interested parties on certain issues, taking their views into account. At times he will disappoint the left and at times he will disappoint the right (though you can be sure that the right talk radio will criticize virtually everything he does). I think Obama will be left of center overall. He should win by a large margin so he does have political capital to stand up to the left and say to them, "I wasn't elected by liberals, I was elected with the support of a lot of Republicans and independents".

What I like about Obama is that he doesn't owe any "big business" anything. Obama was supported (and if elected) and won the election because of the people. That's a mandate that returns our country back to its roots of government service for its citizens.

Joe, just don't join the children who attempt and fail to re-define "moderate" as "moderately leftist" or "moderately liberal," as is common, including the case of this Web site. [better-knowing scowl]

Stockster: the far left (the _real_ left) has been degenerate and worse for ages. They _have_ been right (i.e., correct and everything else that word commonly conveys) before. The Civil Rights Revolution (I'm happy to capitalize that) was the last thing it did right, and is in fact a far greater achievement than the Europe-Totalitarian-Lite Roosevelt version of conversion in the 1930s to a modern welfare state (while trashing the Constitution, as the New Dealers admitted, for example, Tugwell, calling it "obsolete") ever was, even though the changes in the 1930s were obviously more fundamental. (Goldwater opposed them in 1964, and, aided by an already-leftist-then-media, lost; the issue was settled.) I wish the activists would reject (it's asking too much of them, sadly, to renounce) the idiocy of 1968 onward, and to be realistic. There are other things that the Left can win, and if they started with broadly-appealing things, like health care (they must do a delicate dance around abortion, and for that matter, contraception; if they demand no parental notification, they are degenerate, already-criminal-lowlife scum, and deliberately subversive, and sadly won't be treated as harshly as they deserve to be), they have openings to society. Nobody but idiots wants outright seizure ("garnishment" is the nastiest term used normally) of incomes to be redistributed to others (usually far from deserving), but we'll see a willingness, at least (probably more, I believe) to examine and adopt modern leftist concepts and objectives.

What I like about Obama is that he doesn't owe any "big business" anything. Obama was supported (and if elected) and won the election because of the people. That's a mandate that returns our country back to its roots of government service for its citizens.

Of course you do know that that's a myth? On a percentage of funds basis, GWB had more small donors.

Great link, CStanley. Gives a much more complete picture of the Obama and Democratic fund-raising machines. One unfortunate item is that they stated Obama's percentage of support under $200 is "slightly under" Bush's but didn't give the numbers. It's not clear if that's 26% to 25% or 42% to 25%. (Just found a separate link; Bush had 26% in 2004, so it's basically even.)

As for whether or not popular financial support is a "myth", it's a more complicated picture, of course. As a percent, Obama is slight under or even with Bush for people under $200, but at the same time, the pure number of donors increased a full 50% from 2 million to 3 million, so that more of the campaign was funded solely by the small donors. $100 by 1 million people of course gives a full 100 million more in small donor funding.

The key number to me that the Post didn't give is the total amount of money (and the corresponding percent) given by individual donors at the $2300 and under level. It seems like that's the real key to gauging every-man support. After all, it isn't like we expect a President to give special meetings and Lincoln Bedroom sleep-overs to everyone who gave $2300. So how much is the hard money from individuals and how much is the soft money where people can give tens of thousands and expect some sort of favor in return?

Hard to say. I simply multiplied $2300 by 3.1 million people and, unless my zeroes are off, it comes to 7 billion dollars. Plenty of room there for individuals to fund his entire campaign. Even $200 by 3.1 million people comes out to 620,000,000, which according to the article, is about what they've raised in hard money. So the question is: just how much total soft money went to the DNC and the Dems? Per the article, the DNC had 160 million in October to spend on the campaign, but that's just what they still had. Hard to guess then the total amount of soft money. Perhaps 2/5 of the total?

Anyway, thanks for the link, CStanley. My summary would be that there are still indeed going to be bigshot fundraisers expecting some attention in the Obama administration, but that there influence will be slightly less due to a 100 million dollar (completely guestimated) increase in small donor contributions, and that's real money.