Please note retitles, otherwise article is as published 8/18/08.
Regarding the FEC Status Reports for Presidential Candidates and PAC’s, Due August 20th, 2008.
How to Find Obama’s Contributions and Contributors
In her article, (Must read!) about the Clinton emails, which were published in the Atlantic Monthly, BlueLyon said something with which I wholeheartedly agree:
[“It was always best, we were told, to go to the original witness or document for source material. Furthermore, leaving out key parts of a document, just to further an ideological point of view reduces a journalist’s credibility, so Don’t Do It.”]
If original source material is the gold standard of reference material, it follows that when it comes to reporting the monthly expenditures for Candidates we should go to the original source. What is that?
It is not the Huffington Post, or any other “helpful” blog site! It is not the MSM!
It is not what we hear the Candidates or campaign staff say! Even though others opinions may be good or helpful; it is not original source material.
It is the Federal Elections Commission(FEC)! One thing I do know is that the Federal Government is pretty good at generating paperwork. Veteran reporters, like Michael Huo, over at the NYT, know this too, and are “standing in line” for the information as soon as it arrives from campaign staff and is given to the FEC.
Last month, when the June reports came out, in a little email exchange with Mr. Huo, I learned something about the process of reporting the contributions. It appeared to me that Senator Obama, and Senator Clinton had not delivered their reports on time, while Senator McCain had. Keep in mind that we had just gone through a minor kerfluffle regarding campaign finance transparency.
Mr. Huo nicely wrote me that, in fact, Clinton had delivered her report around 9:30pm, and Obama “around” midnight. The next day I looked again at the FEC website for the results and didn’t see them. As it turned out, I wasn’t on the wrong page; Mr. Huo and I just weren’t on the SAME page. You see, Mr. Huo had seen the summary reports arrive. They were almost immediately reported in the summary map found on the front page of the FEC website, and then around the world.
However, that is not where I was looking. My reference pages took another day for the FEC to tabulate. The FEC map, emulated and linked by others, is a perfectly nice interactive map, however, it does not tell the whole story. In the interest of promoting better personal use of our government, I urge you to become familiar to what is available to all. I noticed on the Huffington site, that for those on dial up, a direct link doesn’t work well; so here is what to do.
I apologize in advance if these graphics are hard to see. Try zooming the screen a little. Or you can double click the graphics to enlarge them. If you can see them, print a pdf copy of this blog so you can refer to it and go to this site: http://www.fec.gov
On the page, scroll down under the seal to “Campaign Finance Reports and Data”,marked above with an arrow. Clink on that link and it will give you a summary, looking like this:
Click on the link marked by the arrow in the example above that says, “Search the Disclosure Database”. The Disclosure DataSearch Page gives you many fun places to check out, but click on the link that says” Candidate and PAC/Party Summaries”, shown below:
Aren’t “drill downs” fun? However, we aren’t done yet. After you have clicked the above you will see this:
We are narrowing the Search for the Democratic reports, so make sure all the places where I have marked are clicked or emboldened. Then, click the button that says “Send Query”:
All the people you see spent money as part of a presidential candidacy in this election cycle. You’ll note Bill Clinton is on there. I/m not sure why, unless it was his own work as part of her campaign. Several of these names deserve further research. Near the bottom of the page you will find Barack Obama’s Link. The page I am showing you represents the reports ending 6/30/08 and reported in July. These figures will change after August 20th, and each month to reflect the new reports. Click on Obama’s link and you will see this:
The top figure represents the sum all of the receipts or money received by the Obama campaign to date for this presidential cycle. Now we need to discuss some terms:
1. Maximum donations allowed.
All people, who are citizens in the United States, may contribute a total of $2300 for a primary and another $2300 for a general election for each candidate. If you wanted to, for example, you could send money to McCain and Obama.
2. Itemization Threshold.
To reach that maximum amount you could send $5 a week or $2300 all at once. However, once you send a total of $200, you reach the itemization threshold. The FEC wants your name listed as a donor. So at $200 and for every donation you send after that, your name and contribution is listed in the candidates’ monthly report and named as “Individual Contributions”. They don’t make a total under your name of all the contributions you have sent; they just add your name again with next contribution.
The lower ballooned figure represents Individual contributions. If you want later, you can click the letters to find names of donors. For now however, click on the link that says “Individual Contributions”.
Now, keep in mind what we mean by Individual contributions. Listed is the number of people who gave individual contributions in June.
289,294
This is the TOTAL number for the entire election through June. In June, David Axelrod said their campaign reached 1.5 million donors on PBS. This month I am hearing the 2 million figure. It is not reflected here on the FEC website! Well, where are all those donors?
Is it possible that difference between the “Net Receipts” and the “Individual Contributions” reflects the remaining donors? Those would be all those small donors who have not reached the $200 itemization figures. If you want to check, try subtracting the “Transfers From Authorized Committees” from the “Net Receipts”. Then subtract the “Individual Contributions” from the remainder of the “Net Receipts”. See if you think the missing 1,210,057 donors could possibly account for that amount. Really it’s a trick question, because the real answer is:
IT’S NOT DONORS, IT’S DONATIONS!!!! IT’S NOT CONTRIBUTORS, IT’S CONTRIBUTIONS!!!!
Go back to the FEC front page, link down to the Elections Map for Obama, or HERE: Re-read what it says: “Size of Donations”. June’s report indicates that $166,951,890 in amounts under $200 was given. “DONATIONS”. Those donations could include people past the itemization threshold or not. At this point most have probably donated multiple times. I think there can be no doubt that all those “small donors” generated a lot of excitement. So what do you think David Axelrod was doing when he told those lovely folks over at PBS “we reached 1.5 million Contributors!” Ummmm.
Obama Camp Seeks to Redefine Battlegrounds, Focus on Policy
[DAVID AXELROD: Well, first of all, Judy, let me say that the whole point of campaign finance reform laws are to reduce the influence of big money in our politics. No one has done more to achieve that as a candidate than Barack Obama: 1.5 million contributors, average donation less than $100.]
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june08/axelrod_06-24.html
Yep, truth in advertising all right! Now that you know how, you can do it for August, or any of the other Candidates. Have Fun! For a little more fun check with “The League of Women Voters” HERE, and see what they have to say about this.
I Own My Own Vote, Just Say No Deal, PUMA PAC, The Denver Group
In 2003 and 2004 I gave in excess of $500 to Howard Dean’s campaign, but because that amount came in dribs and drabs (each amount less than $250) when I pull up his individual contributors’ data, I am not even listed.
http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/com_ind/C00378125/6/S/
Dean’s was the first campaign where I heard the old “X amount of contributors giving less than $80” meme. At the time there were many that were saying he was conflating the number of contributions with the number of individual contributors, but no one ever called the campaign on it. Since the same folks (Trippi, et al) are running Obama’s campaign, I’m not surprised to hear this same BS.
Interestingly enough, all my contributions to HRC are listed. Even my $5 one.
LikeLike
Yeah, My $10 contribution to HRC was as well. I didn’t contribute in the 2004 election, so I was unaware of this. Hillary had plenty of small contributions as well, and didn’t play this game. I think it’s just another kind of fraud.
LikeLike
[…] Depending on how many people you assign to this remainder, the TOTAL number of contributors is still probably less than 300,000. This does not correspond with the July Campaign claims of 1.5 million contributors. If you missed it, or are still unsure, check back HERE. […]
LikeLike
[…] https://roofingbird.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/truth-in-advertising/ […]
LikeLike