Posted on 04/27/2008 11:24:35 AM PDT by The_Republican
Shortly after Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s decisive 10-point triumph in Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary, her campaign won another key victory. By trumpeting a record $10 million fundraising haul in the 24 hours after the primary, the Clinton camp managed to silence speculation about whether she’ll be able to compete in the next round of states after emptying her coffers in Pennsylvania.
Even as questions were being raised about the timing, number and type of donations that comprised the one-day windfall, the cash-strapped campaign managed a rare political feat.
It not only amplified the significance of Clinton’s decisive win, it also achieved its goal of erasing doubts about whether she would have the resources to compete in the May 6 contests in Indiana and North Carolina.
The account of how the Clinton camp squelched that potential storyline is a lesson in successful campaign spin, a case of shaping favorable media coverage by crafting a narrative too compelling to overlook yet also impossible to independently verify.
The effort began Tuesday evening as the Pennsylvania results rolled in and reporters began asking questions about how Clinton could afford to compete with Obama in Indiana and North Carolina. In response, the Clinton campaign began highlighting the early flood of donations to its website.
Circulating in the makeshift press room at the Center City Philadelphia hotel where Clinton was holding her victory celebration, Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee told reporters the campaign had raised $2.5 million in the couple of hours since the polls closed.
By 10 a.m. Wednesday, the campaign e-mailed reporters with overnight fundraising details, stating it had raised more than $3.5 million since the polls closed and boasting “last night’s fundraising total … was the strongest ever.”
Three hours later, Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe, in an appearance on MSNBC, upped the ante. He predicted the campaign would raise $10 million in the 24 hours following the Pennsylvania victory and bragged that the campaign had already received donations from “50,000 brand-new donors … giving $10, $20, $30, $40, $50. It is an extraordinary day for us.”
By 2 p.m., Hassan Nemazee, a national finance chairman for the campaign, boasted to BusinessWeek that the campaign had already reached $10 million from 60,000 donors, more than 80 percent of whom were first-time givers.
Then, within the hour, Jonathan Mantz, the campaign’s finance director, confirmed the campaign had reached $10 million, though he offered different donor numbers, saying there were 60,000 new donors.
“Since our victory last night — at 10 o’clock at night — to where we are today, as of exactly 2:35, we have raised $10 million online from grass-roots supporters going to HillaryClinton.com, making $10, $20, $50 contributions,” he told more than 3,000 donors who dialed into a conference call with him, McAuliffe and Clinton herself.
“Sixty thousand new contributors to the campaign, brand-new contributors to this effort going to our website, to HillaryClinton.com,” Mantz added. “It is unbelievable what’s going on right now.”
So unbelievable, it seems, that even within the campaign there was uncertainty as to how much had been raised as yet another figure surfaced around 6 p.m., when Peter Daou, Clinton’s Internet director, told The New York Times that the campaign had raised $8 million.
Finally, about 11 p.m., the campaign posted on its website its final tally for the one-day windfall: $10 million from 100,000 donors, of whom it said 80,000 were first-time givers.
It made no difference that the details didn’t always add up — wide variations in the numbers of new donors; a conflicting timeline of when the money was actually raised. It was the eye-popping $10 million figure — the most ever claimed in a 24-hour period — that dominated the news cycle.
Daou told Politico the fundraising explosion could be attributed to excitement over Clinton’s win and her plea in her victory speech for supporters to go to her website to contribute.
Any confusion over the number of donors stemmed from reporters “conflating” and confusing numbers distributed by various campaign staffers and officials, Daou contended, asserting the campaign has been transparent in releasing online fundraising tallies.
“We’re very proud of these numbers,” Daou said. As for the variations between the figures, Daou said that all the numbers and projections released “over the course of the 24-hour period [by] campaign officials including myself, the communications team and the chairman … were accurate statements.”
And he promised the numbers will be borne out when the campaign files its next financial report with the Federal Election Commission on May 20.
“Everybody will see, as we’ve seen for the past 14 months … the accuracy of the numbers,” he said, adding “FEC reports are as definitive as you can get in terms of proving fundraising.”
Except the reports cannot and will not prove the campaign’s claim of raising $10 million in one day.
That’s because the FEC requires campaigns only to list the donors and dates of contributions that surpass $200 for the entire election cycle. So small donations from new donors — the kind that formed the bulk of Clinton’s haul — aren’t detailed on the reports. Instead, contributions of $200 or less are listed in lump sums as “unitemized contributions.”
Over the course of the campaign, Clinton has reported $34 million in unitemized contributions, compared with $79 million for Barack Obama and $11 million for John McCain.
Clinton is hardly the only candidate who has taken advantage of the information gap left by the FEC reports with strategic releases of cash flow data in an attempt to build momentum by demonstrating broad grass-roots support.
Obama boasted that he brought in more than $6 million online in the 24 hours after the last votes were cast on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5. And Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s Republican presidential campaign also reported raising more than $6 million in a single December day.
Unlike the Clinton campaign — which also indicated it raised $4 million after both Super Tuesday and the March 4 primaries — Obama and Paul on their websites displayed tickers of sorts keeping a running tally of contributions received in real time during their respective fundraising surges.
Even then, it was impossible to independently vouch for the accuracy of such counters. Obama aides in March admitted that a different ticker, which counted the total number of donors to the campaign, was inaccurate because of a technical glitch.
Joe Trippi, who managed the pioneering 2004 Democratic presidential campaign of Howard Dean, which took online fundraising to a new level, acknowledged that there were times the campaign would estimate daily fundraising tallies — based on online fundraising rates and how much it believed it had received through the mail in yet-to-be counted checks — so it could release figures to major newspapers before deadlines.
“Yeah, that happened, but it was around the very edges,” he said, adding that usually their estimates ended up short of the actual tally.
Trippi, who managed former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards’ 2008 Democratic presidential campaign and is neutral in the Obama-Clinton battle, said he doesn’t believe Clinton — or any other candidate — would fudge numbers.
“I don’t know of a campaign that’s really done that, because the danger is you do have to report and sooner or later you’d get caught,” he said.
Either way, by midday Thursday, it no longer mattered. The media had moved on. And the Clinton campaign was already pitching a next-day story that would keep the $10 million day in the news by explaining how its online strategy paved the way for the boom.
God bless The Chicoms. They always come through.
Or the Clintons could just be lying again.
There’s some big money behind these thugs. And believe me, it’s not there for high minded motives.
thx to Rush and his minions...
You mean there might be a position for Tony Soprano in a new Clinton Administration????
“I don’t know of a campaign that’s really done that, because the danger is you do have to report and sooner or later you’d get caught,” he said.
Either way, by midday Thursday, it no longer mattered. The media had moved on. And the Clinton campaign was already pitching a next-day story that would keep the $10 million day in the news by explaining how its online strategy paved the way for the boom.
Does anyone else find this to be rather naive thinking? How long has Joe Trippi been around the Clintons? Hey, Joe! There's a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you!
hillary can raise more money in a day than McCain can raise in a month, and Obama can raise even more money than she does.
What does that say about McCain’s popularity? What happens when the press finally turns and jumps on a man who can’t raise any money and who is widely disliked by his own base?
McCain thinks he’s reaching out to the left to gain the support he has lost from conservatives. Does he think that Geffen or Streisand are about to send him a few millions? Soros, maybe.
thx to Rush and his minions...
&&&
I am not happy about his antics in this either. It scares the h3!! out of me to think of the Clintons getting their hands on the WH again.
If Rush’s plan doesn’t work, many will hate him forever. If it does work, he will be hailed as a genius for generations. I pray he’s on his way to glory.
Sorry, but I have to disagree, especially the part about Rush being insane or making an insane move. To start with, Operation Chaos is a joke, a prank played by Rush, if you really think enough people were influenced by Rush's little joke to keep Hillary going you have a problem.
The reason BHO has started to tank is his own doing, his association with Wright, which he refuses to drop and whom he refuses to criticize, his stupid remarks about people being bitter, his dumb wife complaining about America, and both of them trying to say how destitute they have been as "black Americans", all of these things have made him unelectable. Hillary is equally unelectable if McCain would start acting, and being, like a conservative, but he won't.
So, as long as McCain is acting like the Democrats third choice for nomination he will have a hard time beating either of these a**hats. You may think Hillary is bad, but good old Barrack is worse than she is and is just as likely to be elected to office as she is if he wins the nomination.I do not want to see BHO as nominee for the Dems.
If they can vote from the cemeteries, they can certainly contribute up to $200.
I couldn’t agree more.
I could just cry to think that we may have finally been rid of Hillary and Bill, and now thanks to Rush and Hannity, we may end up with her after all. We had her in our sights, and these foolish men and Rush’s foolish followers let her slip through. All this dirt on Obama would have been sweet after he secured the nomination.
Rush doesn’t care as long as McCain loses. He has taken the Ann Coulter tact and wants Hillary to win.
” Sorry, but I have to disagree, especially the part about Rush being insane or making an insane move. To start with, Operation Chaos is a joke, a prank played by Rush, if you really think enough people were influenced by Rush’s little joke to keep Hillary going you have a problem.”
Well then i hope Rush is willing to live with the consequences when Hillary wins the nomination and the presidency. He can’t have it both ways. If he wants to take credit if it’s a success, then he better be prepared for the hate mail when it fails. I hope those stupid OC T-shirts and caps aren’t selling well, but however many are sold, I hope there is a big bonfire to burn all that stuff on Hillary’s inauguration day. And don’t be surprised if she doesn’t throw in a “thank you” to Rush in her inaugural speech.
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