[lbo-talk] Caldwell on Dean

[Nathan Newman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Pollak" <mpollak at panix.com>
Chris Caldwell
>Once you hit $100,000, the Democrats really begin
>to clean up. They hold a fundraising advantage that widens rapidly as the
>numbers get more stratospheric. In contributions of over $1 million, they
>outraise Republicans by 92 percent to 8 percent.
>Dean may have risen by attracting a base of fundraisers who are the same
>people as those the party claims, increasingly implausibly, to speak for.

This description is just mindless by Caldwell.  Many of those $1 million
checks represent hundreds of thousands of union members paying a few bucks
each into union political warchests.  On the other hand, "small" $250 checks
come overwhelmingly from the upper middle class and even wealthy.

The biggest mental breakdown in discussions of campaign finance is not
considering HOW MANY PEOPLE lay behind larger checks-- I wish there was a
rating on each contribution of dollars per donar involved to really stack
them up against each other.

== Nathan