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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (92693)	10/31/2008 12:48:36 PM
From: Dale Baker	Respond to of 541658

Obama now talking in Iowa how a strong popular vote against old-style politics could change the tone from the whole red-blue state stalemate. "A new politics for a new time" he called it. Let's hope we get to hear more about that after Tuesday.

To: Dale Baker who wrote (92693)	10/31/2008 12:49:26 PM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541658

Surely it's less corrupting if anything. If all the donations are small and individual, you're less tied to any single donor and so less "motivated" to do them particular favours. Maybe more transparency would be good, at least on web donations where it's quite possible to record, but any way it's better than huge personal cheques from individuals, companies or other groupings. And a possible corollary, you're possibly more inclined to benefit as many people as possible with your policies - the phrase "spread the wealth" comes to mind <g>

To: Dale Baker who wrote (92693)	10/31/2008 2:50:22 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541658

My worry is that the legacy of this period is not large numbers of small donors but large numbers of dollars. If you have Obama level assets, you can, memory may well claim, do an Obama style campaign. So the early to middle fund raising will focus on the amount rather than the source. Present regulations may limit that but wouldn't be surprised to see those either raised or so hedge with qualifiers as to be totally ineffective. One more thought. Obama's small donor base. I think we are going to learn over the next several months that there were two keys to this--Obama's personal pull and the organizational skills of his fund raising effort--personnel and technology. The combination may be hard to impossible to replicate.