Opinion: Obama’s ‘personal’ notes rake in the cash

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Barack Obama, or rather his campaign’s finance folks, seem to have stumbled onto a useful fundraising gimmick -- an urgent ‘personal’ note to supporters pleading for a quick donation of modest size and signed by ‘Barack’ himself. Although, to be honest, it’s hard to tell if it’s a genuine signature in an e-mail.

When Hillary Clinton announced her third-quarter fundraising numbers Monday, it turns out she’d collected about $2.1 million more than Obama. Shortly after midnight, his campaign transmitted a message that appeared to be from Barack himself. ‘We continue to build the largest grassroots movement in history,’ he wrote, ‘but Washington lobbyists and special interests rallied to help Hillary Clinton out-raise us for the first time.... We must close the gap right now. I need you to make a donation of $50.’

Noting that he has not accepted ‘a dime’ from lobbyists and special interest PACs, the message went on to add: ‘Hillary Clinton aggressively seeks money from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. She’s even said these lobbyists represent real Americans.’

The result: Within a little more than 24 hours, the campaign received more than $1 million from an unspecified number of donors, the largest spike in single-day donations since his announcement last winter, a spokeswoman said. (The campaign also reported collecting $4.5 million from nearly 22,000 Californians in the third quarter.)

So what did the campaign do? It sent out another quick-hit missive Wednesday night. ‘I’m leaving the Tonight Show studio,’ ‘Barack’ wrote at 10:50 p.m. Pacific time, actually about five hours after the show’s taping and even before the show aired on the West Coast. He said he started the week $2.1 million behind the Clinton camp. ‘But we’ve already cut that advantage in half with small donations from people like you. Let’s close the rest of the gap now. Please make a donation of $25.’

By noon Thursday a campaign spokeswoman said the total raised online had grown to nearly $1.6 million since the original note went out.

But there’s always a spoiler in the crowd. Yesterday the Roll Call newspaper, a subscription-only site, reported that while Obama heightened his attacks on Clinton for her ties to lobbyists, he was also sending out pleas to 42 different committees of policy supporters, including numerous lobbyists, asking them to volunteer for a week of door-to-door campaigning in early primary states.

The campaign quoted spokesman Ben LaBolt as seeing no problem between criticizing lobbyists’ influence and rejecting their money and asking many of them to volunteer for him in early states. He said they are not inherently bad people, they just enjoy outsized influence.

Still, Roll Call found some lobbyists who support Obama but were growing a little tired of being the frequent public whipping boy for the campaign they’re working for. ‘If you’re taking the position that lobbyists are not a part of your campaign and you won’t accept their money,’ the newspaper quoted one unidentified lobbyist as saying, ‘it’s a little disingenuous to turn around and basically ask them for in kind support by volunteering.”

But in political campaigns, nuances like that have a way of getting, how shall we put it, crushed.

--Andrew Malcolm