Obama Loses One Fundraising Advantage

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We’ve covered the fundraising beat a little bit recently. Here’s a new piece of news: Obama may be shifting to a more conventional top-dollar fundraising model. Washington Post:

Sen. Barack Obama reversed a three-month fundraising slide by raising $52 million in June… Obama’s campaign would not say how much of his total was raised from small donors who gave online, and official reports are not due to be filed until Sunday. But an examination of his campaign schedule — which has been packed with high-dollar fundraising events — would suggest that he relied less on Internet donors than he did in February, when he took in $55.4 million…

The shift has been noticed by top Obama fundraisers, who have been busily planning the kind of big-money events the candidate was able to bypass in the heat of the primary campaign. Several said in interviews that the campaign is no longer seeing the kind of online bonanza that occurred during Obama’s long battle with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, when more than $1 million was flowing in each day.

One of the advantages Obama is seen as having over McCain is his freedom from fundraisers. The theory goes that because Obama raises so much cash online, he can spend his time holding rallies instead of high-end fundraisers, thus improving his chances of winning and decreasing his dependence on fat cats.

I’ve asked the Obama campaign if they are seeing a decrease in small donors. But the WaPo‘s analysis of Obama’s schedule suggests that no matter what the numbers say, the “freedom from fundraisers” advantage has been lost.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

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