Ben Smith writes:
Meanwhile, about those online numbers, it's hard not to notice that Obama's offline total is roughly equal to Clinton's entire quarterly take.
So we can't really call Obama an "Internet candidate," can we?
He is, among other things, popular with people with disposable income who write checks on old-fashioned paper.
Guess so. But the size of his donor-base -- 250,000+ -- and their low, average contribution, means we're looking at much more than a couple hedge fund managers. Jerome Armstrong theorizes:
It's not the internet, but instead it's Obama's strategy of having paid events has been the boon needed to skyrocket his donor numbers. I've not seen a story on the phenomenon that he's created, but the paid venues have got to have provided Obama with tens of thousands of donors to add to his overall numbers. It's the speaking-venue donors (similar to a rock concert), not internet donors, that's leveraged the donor numbers for Obama; and alongside the astounding high-donor numbers that have sky-rocketed his total raised, it's combined to create a compelling narrative that gives a strategic advantage to Obama.
