The study found that Obama has sent more than $694,000 from either his campaign account or his political action committee to superdelegates -- the members of Congress, governors, and other party leaders who receive automatic votes at the Democratic National Convention.It looks like Obama might have learned more from his Senate experience than Clinton did. Perhaps she assumed the political insiders would default to the Clinton camp. Regardless, this should prevent superdelegates from voting for Clinton if she doesn't win the popular vote.About 40 percent of the elected officials who have endorsed Obama have received campaign contributions from him, the center reports. Those superdelegates have received a total of $228,000 from him.
By contrast, Clinton sent out only $195,500 to superdelegates, and only 12 percent of her superdelegates received money from her for their campaigns, according to the report.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Obama, Clinton Shower Cash on Delegates
ABC Reports:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Interesting article!
Tracking back to the original study, it sounds like they made many of these donations a while ago, like during the 2006 cycle. Some may have been candidate-to-superdelegate donations, but others may have genuinely been colleague-to-colleague gifts. (Hillary gave Bill Richardson a few thousand, for example.) In those cases, what's cause and what's effect? Are those folks voting Obama because he paid them? Or did he pay them because they have a good relationship, and therefore will be voting for him anyway?
Yes, maybe Clinton took for granted that she'd have most of the superdelegate support. More likely though, she didn't even think about it until recently, whereas Obama's camp probably knew from the start that whatever victory they might pull out would be a tight one. Chalk it up to overconfidence, rather than lack of strategic experience.
Post a Comment