EASY ON THE MYTH-STRIPPING...:

Obama's small-donor 'myth': The campaign's base was dominated by those who gave less than $200, the political standard for small donors. But a new study asks, are you still a small donor if you do that five times? (Andrew Malcolm, November 30, 2008, LA Times)

"The myth is that money from small donors dominated Barack Obama's finances," said Michael Malbin, executive director of the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute.

In a recent detailed study that added up the total contributions from the individual donors, the institute discovered that rather than the 50-plus% commonly reported throughout the campaign, only 26% of Obama's contributions through August and only 24% through Oct. 15 came from people whose total donations added up to less than $200.

It comes down to which definition of "small donor" you accept: The political standard has been $200 period. But what about someone who donated $199 to the Obama campaign several times, perhaps totaling close to the $4,600 legal limit for the primary and general elections?

If we get rid of all of them there'll be no Obama left.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 30, 2008 8:15 AM