September 14, 2008 08:18 PM UTC

Half a million new Obama donors in August

• 11 Comments
• by: ClubTwitty

Washington Post:

Democrat Barack Obama again shattered the monthly record for presidential fundraising, bringing in $66 million in August, according to figures his campaign released this morning.

Obama also expanded his already enormous list of donors, adding more than 500,000 first-time donors in August and bringing to 2.5 million the number of people who have contributed to his campaign since he kicked it off at the start of 2007.

While the McCain campaign is steered by Big Corporate lobbyists who want to avoid issues while labeling Americans as whiners, Obama continues to involve average folks in a grassroots campaign that has a ground game unlike any seen before in American politics.

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The Washington Post story continues:

The number of donors is significant because most of those who have given have not yet reached the $2,300 contribution limit. That means Obama has a huge pool of supporters to return to this month and next as he seeks to cover the expensive final weeks of campaigning.

The McCain campaign is clearly desperate, attacking any questioning of their VP pick as ‘sexist’ while refusing to put forth a single positive message, or indicate a single policy on which it differs from the Bush regime.  Instead McCain–who once made integrity his key selling point–is basing its entire strategy on lying to the American electorate, as dozens of articles in newspapers across the nation have noted in the last week.  A column in the Chicago Tribune notes:

Now politicians are not saints, and campaigns are not conducted under oath. We all expect a certain amount of deceit from people running for office, in the form of fudging, distortion, exaggeration and omission. But the McCain campaign’s approach, as this episode illustrates, is of an entirely different scale and character. It is to normal political attacks what Hurricane Ike is to a drive-through carwash.

Take Palin’s claim to have opposed the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere.” Long after it was exposed as false, she kept making it. The assumption behind the McCain strategy is that truth is irrelevant.

As well as mobilizing the evangelical and hard-core right wing base, the nomination of Sarah Palin has also energized Obama’s campaign:

Fundraisers for Obama’s campaign said they already believe September could surpass August in money raised, thanks in part to a wave of new donations that followed McCain’s announcement of running mate Sarah Palin. They said the Alaska governor’s conservative positions have helped galvanize the Democratic donor base in ways they had not seen previously.

Yesterday morning, in Grand Junction, Coloradans lined up as early as 6 AM–with the line stretching around the block–to score a ticket for Obama’s speech on Monday.