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Possible June Shocker--Did McCain Outraise Obama?

Here's a video of Obama campaign manager Plouffe begging for more donations:



Patrick Ruffini notes that Obama is using telemarketing efforts to gin up fundraising:

It's also interesting that Obama is using telemarketing, usually the least efficient form of direct to market fundraising. Though he has to have used it at some other point in the campaign, I'm sure there was a great hope that the transition to online would obviate the need for more expensive fundraising techniques like mail and phones. This is also the first time I've heard of someone reporting an Obama telemarketing call. So, it looks like they're trying to squeeze out cash any way they can.
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Sean Oxedine notes that when Barack has had good fundraising numbers to report, they've come out early; when the numbers are bad they come out late:

Obama's record-breaking $55M fundraising haul in February was announced on March 6. Two days after the Ohio/Texas campaigns, when he desperately needed to release some good news.

Obama's pretty-darned-good $40M+ fundraising haul in March was announced on April 3, early in the month.

But Obama's now-under-expectations $31M in April wasn't announced until May 20. You remember, the day of the Oregon and Kentucky primary, when everyone was talking about things other than fundraising numbers?

And the May numbers ($22M) weren't announced until June 20. A Friday, aka "bury news day."
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I want to make sure it's stated openly about how Obama played this. The report comes out, Obama makes no signal about his fundraising, he even releases a fundraising letter that pointedly avoids any mention of how much he has raised...

...and then it's $52 million.

If there's any analogy here, it's that this is a basketball game, one-on-one, and Obama just executed a perfect head fake.
 
I guess it makes sense in retrospect, if the numbers were low you'd want to get them out there ASAP to motivate donors (look at the huge boost Hillary got after announcing she had to loan her campaign money).
 
Take it to the bank, the $52m number will be spun by the repub folks to be bad. The amount, less then expected, or it was tainted money, or it was disparate last minute begging or, or, or....

Let's see what they say.
 
It's a big number no doubt about it. But if there hadn't been this intervening story about Obama raising about $20 million, the take would have been "Obama raises half of what was expected," since the original projection was $100 million. So yeah, expectations got lowered and he exceeded them. Politics is all about managing expectations.
 
Let me start by saying I wasn't even aware that there was a projection of $100 million until this thread, and I haven't followed the fundraising all that closely but ... was the 100 million projection really taken seriously or was it just some pie in the sky kind of talk?
 
Brainster said:
It's a big number no doubt about it. But if there hadn't been this intervening story about Obama raising about $20 million, the take would have been "Obama raises half of what was expected," since the original projection was $100 million. So yeah, expectations got lowered and he exceeded them. Politics is all about managing expectations.
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Wasn't it conservative bloggers who set the expectation so low?
 
Right, and then the Wall Street Journal speculated that it was $30 million, at which point the Obama campaign fired back that it was way higher.

Either way, the title of this thread now looks utterly ridiculous.
 
Thus I hereby propose that from now on ridiculously biased and inflammatory forum thread titles be referred to as "Brainsters."
 
Some details about the $52 million ...

http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/.../the-meaning-of-obama-s-52-million-month.aspx

... Two numbers tell the entire story: $2 million and $68. The latter is the average size of a contribution to the Obama campaign in June. The amazing thing is that it's about $30 lower than the average contribution in May, April or March. This indicates that the senator attracted a massive number of new $5, $10, $20 donors once the primaries ended--presumably from the ranks of devoted Dems who had (until then) supported Hillary Clinton. Going forward, the sustained growth of this small-sum base is by far Obama's biggest advantage over McCain, who's relying mostly on big-money people to max out and move along.

On the other hand, the $2 million--i.e., the meager amount Obama banked last month for the general election--symbolizes the challenges he still faces even though he more than doubled McCain's June tally. Of course, Obama doesn't need the general-election money now; in fact, he can't even start spending it until the end of August. ...
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Brainster said:
It's a big number no doubt about it. But if there hadn't been this intervening story about Obama raising about $20 million, the take would have been "Obama raises half of what was expected," since the original projection was $100 million. So yeah, expectations got lowered and he exceeded them. Politics is all about managing expectations.
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Yes. Note however that you're the one who set the bar so low. :D
If some Obama fanboy here had started a thread speculating that Obama might have raised $100 million it would have been opposite.
 
Brainster said:
It's a big number no doubt about it. But if there hadn't been this intervening story about Obama raising about $20 million, the take would have been "Obama raises half of what was expected," since the original projection was $100 million. So yeah, expectations got lowered and he exceeded them. Politics is all about managing expectations.
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Never heard about the $100 million June projection. Perhaps you have a cite?

I have heard $300 million projection for the campaign from point of Hillary's sunset. That's pretty optimistic too. Let's say that's for June thru October - 5 months. That's $60 million/month on average. So those numbers had better be creeping up over the coming months to hit that particular projection.
 
David Wong said:
Right, and then the Wall Street Journal speculated that it was $30 million, at which point the Obama campaign fired back that it was way higher.
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Slight correction: They didn't say way higher; they said way off - meaning possibility of it being way lower. Unlikely, but just keeping it accurate.
 
hgc said:
Never heard about the $100 million June projection. Perhaps you have a cite?
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The article Brainster linked to in the opening post supports what he said ...

http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/ob...llion-in-june-fundraisers-say-2008-06-09.html


... Specifically, they say Obama could raise $100 million in June and could attract 2.5 million to 3 million new donors to his campaign. ...

...

... “One hundred million dollars this June — it’s definitely within reach,” said Wade Randlett, who has raised more than $200,000 for Obama.“ ...


... Alan Kessler, who served as one of Clinton’s national finance co-chairmen, said that Obama’s record-breaking fundraising has left little doubt that he could raise $100 million in a single month, a total that would have been considered impossible a few years ago. ...
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However, the statements seem to be more speculative than anything else, but so was Brainster's statement. However, it seemed to morph into something more after that in the thread.

The fundraisers in the article don't seem to be part of Obama's campaign management, but I could be mistaken on that. So, I doubt this was coming from the Obama campaign itself.
 
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Most of the bloggers on Obama's website seem to think it's entirely possible to get over that total in July. I've heard some say "let's shoot for 100 million" but no one's said they think it's definite that it will happen that way. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that his campaign well surpassed the prior record of 55 million in February though; they are, from what I've read on that site, extremely motivated folks. Many of them are currently spending most of their free time actively campaigning in their areas for Obama.
 
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