Hi all! As you (probably haven't) noticed, I write very few diaries. I'm not a policy wonk. I don't consider myself particulary well-informed about politics -- one of the many reasons I'm here. Between elections I read a lot, but usually don't even bother signing in because other than expressing appreciation of someone's humor, enthusiasm, outrage, or well-reasoned point, I don't generally have much to add to the conversation.
However, I had posted what I thought was a very self-evident (although startling) observation on Onomastic's Breaking: Obama hits donation milestone/Democratic Platform uses the term "climate change" 18 times diary. The diarist found it somewhat startling too, and had kindly suggested it should be made into a diary. Well, after that ass-kickin' speech last night by Bill Clinton, I had the perfect title, so I figured what the heck, since I had apparently managed to notice something no one else had mentioned yet.
To whit, that one out of every hundred Americans have contributed to President Obama's re-election campaign.
Enthusiasm gap? Where?
Follow me over the great orange squiggle for more.
The numbers are actually really, really simple. According to Onomastic's diary and the Obama campaign, more than three million people have donated so far this election. More precisely, 3,152,919 as of Sept. 3, when the diary was posted. Let's be lazy and round it up to 3 million and one hundred fifty-three thousand which, after the Big Dawg's speech, I'm sure it's reached ;-) Sooooo...
Individual contributors to Obama's campaign as of Sept. 3, 2012: 3,153,000.
Current population of the USA as of Aug. 14, 2012: 314,159,265.
Which, actually, anyone with a calculator or the ability to do very basic numbers in their head will notice is slightly better than one in a hundred. And our POTUS, the Big O from Chicago, hasn't even officially accepted the nomination yet!
And yet, according to USA Today, President Obama is battling an enthusiasm gap. A very worrisome enthusiasm gap, the article seems to imply. On what do they base this conclusion? On the fact that
"...it doesn't seem like Democrats are as excited about him now as they were four years ago in Denver."
On the fact that
"some Democrats are distancing themselves from President Obama. CNN host Candy Crowley played a campaign commercial for U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., who spoke of how he "took on" the Obama administration over wildlife and regulatory policies..."
On the fact that
"Obama carried 53% of the vote in 2008 against Republican nominee John McCain, a margin seen largely as a repudiation of the Bush years"
...as opposed to an affirmation of the President's candidacy and vision, one assumes.
Hmmm. Let's oppose that to some very simple numbers (and I repeat, and blockquote for emphasis, dang it!):
Individual contributors to Obama's campaign as of Sept. 3, 2012: 3,153,000.
Current population of the USA as of Aug. 14, 2012: 314,159,265.
I dunno, that kinda looks like some pretty solid affirmation to me -- but hey, what do I know? All I've got are hard, tangible numbers. You know, those pesky things journalists
used to traffic in.
So when the right-leaning pundits are sadly scratching their heads on Nov. 7th, wondering how Obama won quite so handily? We can give them a one-word answer (thank you, Bill!!!):
"Arithmetic."
**Quick edit to improve the title, and to change "individual contributions" (which could have included multiple contributions from the same donor), to the clearer and more accurate "individual contributors". Yep, really and truly :-)
**Also, new diary, digging deeper into the momentum expressed by these numbers (and doing a little deductive work about Romney's numbers in comparison -- it'll make ya smile, I promise!) here.
Meant to add the link earlier, but my main man was speaking (love ya, Joe!) and I got distracted. Thanks for reading, everyone!