The Quad-City Times - News, Sports and more from the Quad Cities region or Iowa and Illinois

You are not logged in.
Login

Log in to qctimes.com
Email:
Password:
Remember my information.
Register
Site Help

Note to users: Technical difficulties are causing some comments to not appear. We appreciate your patience as we work on it.

Obama attracting huge amounts of cash from Iowans

Font Size:

Default font size

Larger font size

By Ed Tibbetts | Wednesday, May 21, 2008 12:38 PM CDT | () comments

If history is any guide, Iowans should be pretty busy writing checks to Barack Obama today.

After all, he lost West Virginia Tuesday.

As the freshman U.S. senator from Illinois closes in on the Democratic presidential nomination, one of the most striking features of his race with rival Hillary Clinton has been his mastery over her in fundraising, an area she was expected to dominate.

He raised $42 million nationwide in March alone. And from last January through March, Iowans gave Obama $682,900, almost $255,000 more than they did to the top four Democratic presidential contenders combined for the same period in the 2004 election cycle.

It’s not just fellow Democrats he’s beating, either.

Through March, Obama had raised roughly the same amount of money from Iowans that President Bush did in the entire 2004 cycle.

He also leads presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain in Iowa donations. McCain raised $138,298 from Iowans between Jan. 1, 2007, and March 31, 2008, although the pace has picked up for him in the first three months of this year. He raised $65,628 in that period.

The figures include contributions from people who have given $200 or more. Federal law doesn’t require detailed disclosure of smaller contributors.

Obama’s fundraising fluency is especially strong in the days after big primary contests, even ones he loses. The day after he lost New Hampshire, for example, he got $36,956 from Iowans.

In the three days after Super Tuesday, he raised nearly $50,000 from Iowans. Even in the three days in March after Clinton revived her campaign by winning the Ohio and Texas primaries, Obama raised $32,000, more than four times what Clinton did.

Kathleen Klarenbeek, a 40-year-old part-time medical transcriptionist from Cedar Rapids, has given Obama $1,000 in 30 installments. The largest donation was $100; the smallest, $5.

She said it’s the first time she’s donated to a political candidate.

“My husband can’t believe how involved I am,” Klarenbeek said, explaining that ever since she began voting “it feels like the entire political process is all about pitting one side against another and that really is old.”

Obama, she said, “speaks to that message that we’re not going to solve the problems that we’re facing unless we work together.”

Obama’s financial strength has been particularly noticeable since the caucuses, which he won.

In 2007, the campaign raised $244,942 from Iowans, just $60,000 more than Clinton did. Since then, he’s nearly tripled her take here, raising 78 percent more money through March than he did in all of last year.

Clinton’s Iowa fundraising, on the other hand, raised less.

The Internet has also been a powerful tool for Obama, who has used it not only to raise massive amounts of money but also to organize.

Jackie Norris, a senior adviser to Obama in Iowa, said donors here have a sense of ownership in the campaign because they believe they kicked it off.

“There’s a lot of investment there,” she said.

The campaign also thinks its fundraising power, not to mention the organization it put into place in the year before the caucuses, positions it well for the fall election.

Dave Roederer, the Iowa chairman of McCain’s campaign, said Obama’s fundraising strength here is something to be “factored in.”

He said the Arizona senator expects to have the resources to compete in Iowa, however, and doesn’t see the fundraising status of the campaigns here as a proxy for the level of support they’ll have in the general election.

Ed Tibbetts can be contacted at (563) 383-2327 or etibbetts@qctimes.com.