Superdelegates have received more than $890,000 in campaign contributions from Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton in the last three years, according to Capital Eye, a newsletter published by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that analyzes campaign finance data.
Mr. Obama’s political action committee, Hope Fund, has given more than $694,000 in contributions to superdelegates since 2005, the article said. And of the 81 elected officials who have committed their superdelegate votes to Mr. Obama, 34 received contributions from him in the past.
Mrs. Clinton’s political action committee, Hillpac, has given $195,000 to superdelegates. Of the 109 superdelegates who have promised her their support, only 13 received contributions from her.
The report found that contributions “have been a generally reliable predictor of whose side a superdelegate will take.”
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Thursday, February 14, 2008
The Most Reliable Predictor of How the Dem Superdelegates Will Vote
Money changes everything:
So what do you and others think about this information, Mike?
ReplyDeleteMoney is the mothers' milk of politics, so I think the superdelegates who received funds from either source are going to fall in line with those sources. The one exception in Clinton's case is if Obama puts her away earlier, then fidelity won't matter as much for those who received her funding.
ReplyDeleteI think the lion's share will fulfill their obligation and fall in line with Obama (although I'm not cynical enough to believe that some won't make a stand either way on the principle of superdelegates representing interests broader than local election returns).
Most importantly, Obama has shown a fundraising prowess to match the IAF-like mechanisms helping to build an organization rivaling the Clinton-controlled DLC. But his funds and the community-based mechanisms are dependent on one another, in my opinion. And, unlike party mechanisms, community-based organizations are harder to control and to mobilize. They are looser than party ties, so I see at some point Obama shedding them for a more reliable party-based organizing mechanism (choosing institutionalization over chaos is natural to all organizations and movements). If the superdelegates give him the nod, we are going to see the institutionalization of Obama in the Democratic Party. And I think that he has enough money invested to insure that they will do so.