Donors who gave $200 to Barack Obama in 2008 but have not yet in 2012, by location. The darkness of the dot corresponds to the number of drop-off donors in that zip code. (BuzzFeed/Ky Harlin)
Posted on 06/04/2012 6:31:27 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In 2008, more than 550,000 gave more than $200 to Barack Obama, entering their names in the longest list of individual donors ever seen in American politics.
That list was a snapshot of the hope Obama inspired in a cross sections of liberals, young professionals, African-Americans, and Democrats who saw in him a generational and historic moment. But now, as Obama struggles to keep pace with his 2008 fundraising clip, that list offers a cross-section of Democratic disappointment and alienation. According to a BuzzFeed analysis of campaign finance data, 88% of the people who gave $200 or more in 2008 — 537,806 people — have not yet given that sum this year. And this drop-off isn’t simply an artifact of timing. A full 87% of the people who gave $200 — the sum that triggers an itemized report to the Federal Elections Commission — through April of 2008, 182,078 people, had not contributed by the end of last month.
Interviews with dozens of those drop-off donors reveal the stories of Democrats who still plan to pull the lever for the president, but whose support has gone from fervent to lukewarm, or whose economic circumstances have left them without money to spare. The interviews and the data are the substance of an “enthusiasm gap” spurred by the distance between the promise of the campaign and the reality of governing, one that has begun to deepen Democratic gloom about this November’s election.
“Where’s the change I can believe in?” asked Lisa Pike, a 55-year-old from Williamsburg, Va. with a small medical transcription business who gave $658 in 2008. She said she is not planning on contributing this time around. “I wish he was the socialist they accused him of being. I wish we had the tons of change that would justify the right freaking out. I wish him well — I don’t dislike him personally — but I’m disappointed that he’s not the change-agent I had hoped for.”
An Obama campaign spokeswoman, Katie Hogan, disputed BuzzFeed’s analysis with the statistics, noting that 98% of its donors have given less than the $200 threshold this year and that the campaign is ahead of its 2008 pace. But Obama is now operating with the technical advantages of a permanent campaign, including history’s largest email list, and the political advantages of incumbency, which traditionally draws business interests and favor-seekers to the candidate. Aides have long anticipated that muscle and technical prowess, combined with fear of a Republican takeover, will replace inspiration in keeping the campaign fundraising on track.
Former donors’ complaints vary — healthcare, the economy, and Congressional deadlock rank high — but many of Obama’s once die-hard supporters share a disappointment born of high expectations. Indeed, Obama’s core supporters in the 2008 Democratic primary were liberals suspicious of Hillary Clinton’s association with a moderate “New Democrat” past and her support for the Iraq war. They backed the Illinois Democrat despite his own relatively centrist platform, but were disappointed when he stuck to it. Several cited Obama’s failure to include a single payer option in his health care bill, as well as general willingness to bend to Republican wishes as being central to their disappointment with the President.
“Mostly, the thing is we want more,” said Kirsten Leitzinger of Rebersburg, Pa. She and her husband, Robert, a race car driver, contributed $1,250 in 2008 and still plan on voting for Obama this time around, but had also expected a more expansive health care bill. They have not yet decided whether they will contribute to his campaign this year; his presidency has left them with expectations and dreams unfulfilled.
“We were a little upset about healthcare. I really, really wanted that public option,” Mrs. Leitzinger said. “I’m looking around here for leadership, and it didn’t happen,” said Elizabeth Hollins. She and her husband Danforth have retired to Williamsburg, Va., and together contributed $2,450 to Obama in 2008. Hollins used to consider herself to be a diehard Obama supporter, but this year, she said, she is not as convicted in her backing.
“I was excited about him. I walked door to door,” she recalled of 2008. “But I haven’t been thrilled. Am I going to vote for Romney? No. But I want to be excited about my president.”
“We are waiting to see more of the leadership we had hoped for before we fork over all of our money,” Hollins said.
Obama’s campaign elided the inevitability of Capitol Hill compromise. In 2008, that provoked intense frustration from the practical-minded Clinton, who at one point parodied Obama’s appeal as “Let's just get everybody together. Let's get unified. The sky will open. The light will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect.'"
“None of the problems we face will be easily solved,” she warned in Providence, R.I., that February. Her warning didn’t derail Obama’s campaign, but her objections appear to ring truer now than they did then to Democrats, and health care isn’t the only issue on which it’s played.
Compromise on another issue has alienated John Meidlinger, 61, who is a clinical psychologist from Grand Island, Neb. He gave $250 in September of ’08. From his perspective, “The biggest deficiency is that he hasn’t done more to regulate the banks. He should be more of a populist,” Meidlinger said.
Yet another hope that Obama never explicitly made became a sticking point for Sandra McCauley, a retired family counselor from Jeffersonville, Ind. who gave $400 in 2008.
“I’d like to see us out of Afghanistan,” she said.
“I didn’t feel good that what I expected wasn’t done,” said Prashant Kothari, 65, an anesthesiologist from Tiffin, Ohio who gave $500 in 2008. “The promises during the campaign didn’t materialize.”
“I still think the world of President Obama and I was just so happy when he was elected,” said Sandra Elkin of Chillicothe, Ohio. Elkin, 70, is retired but spends her time doing accounting work for her husband’s real estate firm, and gave $250 in 2008. “I’ve just been a little disappointed in things, that’s all. That’s why I haven’t contributed.”
But Obama’s policies are not the only reason why families like the Elkins have not contributed to the campaign this year, however.
“Our finances have changed a little bit,” Elkin said.
Obama raised most of his money before the 2008 financial crash that sent the global economy into a spiral from which it hasn’t fully recovered. Unemployment stood at 4.9% when Iowa Democrats chose him on January 3, 2008. It ticked back up to 8.1% this April.
“Financially, I had more money back then than I do today,” said Greg Holmes, who works in the technology sector in Cedar Park, Texas, and gave $550 last cycle. “I’ll vote for him, but I probably won’t give any money.” “I don’t have as much money,” said Ann Walling, a retired Episcopal priest from Franklin, Tenn. who donated $1,900 to Obama in ‘08. Money aside though, Walling is still pledging her vote to Obama. “For the most part I’m very happy with him,” she said.
“I’ve had to kind of back off my charity giving,” said Leah Jones, a retired clinical microbiologist from Langdon, Kan., who gave $1,200 last cycle but said she’s been driven to the financial brink by a son’s illness, and hasn’t even paid her income taxes yet.
“I’ve been really anxious to see where we’re going to go on the health care plan under Obama,” Jones said. “I need to be able to get insurance for my son with his preexisting conditions.”
However, if Jones can get the medical bills paid, she said that she will try to give at least a little to Obama’s campaign. Regardless, Obama can count on her vote.
Other former donors told BuzzFeed they remain loyal to the president, but feel less urgency in giving to a powerful incumbent than to an upstart candidate. “Obama’s got twice as much as Romney, and you’re thinking: Why do I want to give 1,000 or 2,000 bucks if he’s so fat with money?” asked Lyle Ackerman, a retiree in Janesville, Wis., who gave a total of $1,016 to Obama over the 2008 election cycle.
“I haven’t given because I know he’s got plenty of money this year, and he doesn’t need mine. He’ll get my vote,” said Margaret Jones, a 69-year-old part time actor from Williamsburg, Va. Jones just auditioned for Roger Miller’s musical adaptation of Huckleberry Finn, Big River.
Others said that a flood of big corporate cash permitted by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United had persuaded them that small donations are meaningless.
“Citizens United now makes a farce of any puny amount I could give. Why would I waste my money to try to compete with the people who can throw half a billion at Newt Gingrich just in case?” Pike asks. “I will certainly vote for Obama, but that court decision has turned things on its head since 2008.”
And some liberal donors believe their modest contributions will have more impact elsewhere. Ackerman said he’s focused on the campaign to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
Obama is “not liberal enough,” said Karen Herwig, a retired nurse from West Des Moines, Iowa who donated $500 in the ’08 cycle. “I’m making a lot of contributions to people through Emily’s List, Act Blue, to Sherrod Brown.” The Obama campaign notes that many of the donors have given too little to be listed in the campaign finance reports and simply haven’t yet crossed threshold for disclosure.
Hogan, the Obama campaign deputy press secretary, stressed that it’s early yet. Though she declined to give a specific number of donors, she said that 98% of Obama’s donors don’t appear in the itemized reports; those people may well be tempted to give again and again, and to reappear as large and midsize donors. And there are more of them than there were at this point in 2008.
“We hit one million donors six months faster than last time, and hit two million donors four months faster than last time,” Hogan said. “To outpace ourselves from the most unprecedented campaign in history…that's incredible.”
The comparison, however, is inexact. In 2008, Obama started from scratch. He started this cycle with a list of more than 3.95 million donors and an email list more than 10 million names long.
But some of the drop-off donors contacted by BuzzFeed say they do plan to give money, something that an increasingly intense general election campaign may spur. “I am pleased with everything and I think he’s doing the best he can given the situation he’s been placed in mostly by the Republicans,” said Vicki Gehman, who is retired and lives in Newberry, Fla. “I am going to be donating, most definitely. And I probably will be working in the office here to help campaign.”
“He’s still my man for sure,” said Dale Thompson, 64, a farmer from Rippey, Iowa whose farm grows corn and soybeans, as well as supports a Black Angus beef cattle herd. “I still support him 100%, I just haven’t done it monetarily I guess yet.”
“I’ve not made donations to any side in this election cycle yet, but that’s probably more just because I’ve been busy and haven’t been engaged in the campaign yet,” said Scott Ostdiek, 47, a physician from Tempe, Ariz. “The difference for me versus four years ago is there was an active primary campaign going on.”
And while Obama has lost 537,806 of those $200-plus supporters, he has gained some new ones: 104,138 of them, through the end of April.
The missing donors appear, in their raw numbers and in interviews, to be a living illustration of the enthusiasm gap. It should not, however, be mistaken for some sort of mass defection of the Democratic base; former Obama donors are not a group for whom Mitt Romney holds any appeal. And indeed, even those who are disappointed in elements of Obama’s presidency went out of their way to say they appreciate the First Family.
“If I could race out and vote for Michelle Obama, I’d do it in a heartbeat,” chuckled Hollins, the Virginia retiree. “She’s a class act.”
(With data analysis by Ky Harlin)
“I don’t have as much money,” said Ann Walling, a retired Episcopal priest from Franklin, Tenn. who donated $1,900 to Obama in ‘08. Money aside though, Walling is still pledging her vote to Obama. “For the most part I’m very happy with him,” she said.
“I’ve had to kind of back off my charity giving,” said Leah Jones, a retired clinical microbiologist from Langdon, Kan., who gave $1,200 last cycle but said she’s been driven to the financial brink by a son’s illness, and hasn’t even paid her income taxes yet.
Obamanomics at work! But, geesh! They're still voting for the doofus! How dumb are they????
I warned them they wouldn’t be able to keep all they had if that dude was elected
He’s blowing this up with his attacks on Bain Capital and he’s too damned stupid to know it.
Remember what Michael Savage said about liberalism.
I guess they either already proved to themselves that they weren’t racists,
or have decided that they got ripped off in buying absolution in 2008.
If Mr. Obama’s record doesn’t convince these people not to vote for him, nothing will.
Obama has been kind of biting the hands that fed him.
No wonder they quit giving.
It’s still so far from the election though.
and the other 10% want a refund...
Dumbasses.
Most of them are complaining that Obungles is not communist enough. Do these people ever die off? I mean they abort their babies so they should be disappearing.
WHEN - he refused to disclose who donated money to his election campaign, as other candidates had done, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he received endorsements from people like Louis Farrakhan, Muramar Kaddafi and Hugo Chavez, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - it was pointed out that he was a total newcomer and had absolutely no experience at anything except community organizing, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he chose friends and acquaintances such as Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who were revolutionary Communist radicals, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - his voting record in the Illinois Senate and in the U.S. Senate came into question, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he refused to wear a flag lapel pin and did so only after a public outcry, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - people started treating him as a Messiah and children in schools were taught to sing his praises, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he stood with his hands over his groin area for the playing of the National Anthem and Pledge of Allegiance, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he surrounded himself in the White House with advisors who were pro-gun control, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marriage and wanting to curtail freedom of speech to silence the opposition, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he said he favors sex education in kindergarten, including homosexual indoctrination, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - his personal background was either scrubbed or hidden and nothing could be found about him, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - the place of his birth was called into question, and he refused to produce a birth certificate, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he had an association in Chicago with Tony Rezco - a man of questionable character and who is now in prison and had helped Obama to a sweet deal on the purchase of his home - people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - it became known that George Soros, a multi-billionaire Marxist, spent a ton of money to get him elected, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he started appointing White House Czars that were radicals, revolutionaries, and even avowed Marxist /Communists, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he stood before the Nation and told us that his intentions were to “fundamentally transform this Nation” into something else, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - it became known that he had trained ACORN workers in Chicago and served as an attorney for ACORN, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he appointed cabinet members and several advisors who were tax cheats and socialists, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he appointed a Science Czar, John Holdren, who believes in forced abortions, mass sterilizations and seizing babies from teen mothers, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he appointed Cass Sunstein as Regulatory Czar who believes in “Explicit Consent,” harvesting human organs without family consent and allowing animals to be represented in court, while banning all hunting, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he appointed Kevin Jennings, a homosexual and organizer of a group called Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Education Network as Safe School Czar and it became known that he had a history of bad advice to teenagers, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he appointed Mark Lloyd as Diversity Czar who believes in curtailing free speech, taking from one and giving to another to spread the wealth, who supports Hugo Chavez, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - Valerie Jarrett, an avowed Socialist, was selected as Obama’s Senior White House Advisor, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director, said Mao Tse Tung was her favorite philosopher and the person she turned to most for inspiration, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he appointed Carol Browner, a well known socialist as Global Warming Czar working on Cap and Trade as the nation’s largest tax, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he appointed Van Jones, an ex-con and avowed Communist as Green Energy Czar, who since had to resign when this was made known, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - Tom Daschle, Obama’s pick for Health and Human Services Secretary could not be confirmed because he was a tax cheat, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - as President of the United States , he bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , people said it didn’t matter..
WHEN - he traveled around the world criticizing America and never once talking of her greatness, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - his actions concerning the Middle East seemed to support the Palestinians over Israel , our long time ally, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he took American tax dollars to resettle thousands of Palestinians from Gaza to the United States , people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he upset the Europeans by removing plans for a missile defense system against the Russians, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he played politics in Afghanistan by not sending troops early-on when the Field Commanders said they were necessary to win, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he started spending us into a debt that was so big we could not pay it off, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he took a huge spending bill under the guise of stimulus and used it to pay off organizations, unions, and individuals that got him elected, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he took over insurance companies, car companies, banks, etc., people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he took away student loans from the banks and put it through the government, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he designed plans to take over the health care system and put it under government control, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he claimed he was a Christian during the election and tapes were later made public that showed Obama speaking to a Muslim group and ‘stating’ that he was raised a Muslim, was educated as a Muslim, and is still a Muslim, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he set into motion a plan to take over the control of all energy in the United States through Cap and Trade, people said it didn’t matter.
WHEN - he finally completed his transformation of America into a Socialist State , people woke up-—but it was too late. Add these up one by one and you get a phenomenal score that points to the fact that Barrack Hussein Obama is determined to turn America into a Marxist-Socialist society.
All of the items in the preceding paragraphs have been put into place.
All can be documented very easily. Before you disavow this do an Internet search.
The last paragraph alone is not yet cast in stone. You and I will write that paragraph.
Will it read as above or will it be a more happy ending for most of America ?
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