Hillary Losing Donors To Obama
CAPTAIN ED
Hillary Clinton and her supporters had thought that the 2008 primary race would be nothing less than a coronation march, as the supporters of her husband all came together to return the White House keys to the Clinton family. It turned into a dogfight instead, and some of her husband's former colleagues have decided to back another dog in the fight. Barack Obama has managed to convince some of Bill's big fundraisers to support his candidacy over that of the former First Lady:
"As Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton seeks to reassemble the Democratic money machine her husband built, some of its major fund-raisers have already signed on with Senator Barack Obama.
Among the biggest fund-raisers for Mr. Obama's campaign are as many as a half-dozen former guests of the Clinton White House. At least two are close enough to the Clintons to have slept in the Lincoln bedroom.
At minimum, a dozen were major fund-raisers for President Bill Clinton. At least four worked in the administration and one, James Rubin, is a son of a former Clinton Treasury Secretary, Robert E. Rubin. About two dozen of the top Obama fund-raisers have contributed to Mrs. Clinton's Senate campaigns or political action committee, some as recently as a few months ago.
A list of Mr. Obama's top fund-raisers released Sunday showed the extent to which the Democratic Party establishment, once presumed to back Mrs. Clinton, has become more fragmented and drifted into her rival's camp, lending the early stages of the Democratic primary campaign the feeling of a family feud. Some of the movement would have been inevitable given Mr. Clinton's former dominance of the party."
Why have so many former backers slipped away from the latest effort to elect a Clinton to the presidency? The short answer is that Hillary is no Bill. She does not translate well to the stump, something that many people noticed about her during her run for the Senate. While at times she can be warm and humorous, most often she exhibits almost none of the charm that her husband made famous.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, exudes charm and a gravitas that hides a rather callow CV. He has all of two years in national elective office, and has no depth on policy questions. Obama makes Hillary look experienced, and yet significant figures in Democratic fundraising have migrated to his campaign.
What does that mean for both candidates? It means that the powers of the party have started to realize that Hillary isn't inevitable. Her negatives still have not receded, and the likelihood of her winning a general election depend greatly on the Republicans nominating a stiff. She isn't inevitable even in the primary any more, and the donors have started looking for a better option -- one that they can mold into whatever they need to win it all. Obama, withi his skimpy track record, fits the bill far better than Hillary.
It shows in the donor lists, too. Much was made about Obama's impressive donor lists, which ran over 100,000 names, and his $25 million haul was seen as a triumph of grassroots activism. Reality is somewhat less glowing. Almost half of Obama's Q1 donations came from 4,800 donors who gave the maximum $2300 for the primaries. Hillary got 5,100 maximum contributions, in comparison, and almost 3,000 of those gave the maximum for her general-election fund as well. Almost every dollar Obama got was for the primaries.
Watch the money. If the donors keep shifting towards Obama, Hillary may find her return to the White House canceled due to lack of interest.
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