Obama's campaign haul: Big money from big donors

Video: Obama’s base opens its pockets

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   >>> at 4:40 a.m ., before president obama went back to work on preserving the full faith and credit of the united states government , his reelection campaign announced it has already raised more money than any presidential campaign in history at this stage and more than double all the money raised by all of the republican candidates running for president. the president's campaign did this in the face of repeated cries heard from guests on this program and others and many other programs and many blogosphere outlets for most of the last year that the president was alienating his base by abandoning the public option health care bill last year or failing to close the camp at guantanamo bay or even being willing to listen to republicans discuss their politically suicidal wish list for spending cuts in medicare and social security . the president had been warned here and else where that this alienation would first appear in the inability to maintain the obama grassroots fundraising effort that broke online fundraising efforts in the last campaign. the president has now broken his own records. joining me now, ari melber, thanks for joining me tonight. this is our first indicator of what you and i, others, have been talking about, how alienated is the base when president obama is forced to, he would put it, abandon a campaign promise like a public option, closing guantanamo , getting rid of the top bush tax rate going back down on the clinton rate. none of those things happened. other things did in their place. the base in this first fundraising report seems to be understanding.

   >> that's right. i think what you're looking at here is tremendous success, record breaking against obviously, the republicans who are not in great shape at an accumulative $35 million, but against obama 's own record which was impressive. many people have said when you're a challenger, when you're on defense, and when you're asking people to really propel you, you have a better argument than one as an incumbent, any incumbent, what you think seriously disappointed members of his coalition at times. the big number that jumps out at me is 260,000 new donors. new.

   >> i missed that number.

   >> anyone watching at home knows there's a difference between your neighbor talking about obama , you have 260,000 people they found, located, targeted, and reached, that are giving and that's huge.

   >> finding new ones is hard when you saturated in 2008 . part of the money has been raised for the dnc, higher limits, like $5,000. but most of them, the overwhelmingly majority of them in the presidential campaign fund were under $250. so these really are people looking in their wallets saying how much can i afford, i don't normally do this. this is a voter reaction in effect.

   >> i think, and i think it does show something about what we talk about on this show and a lot of places, which is there's an enthusiasm gap. okay, you don't expect someone disappointed about guantanamo to vote for mitt romney , but will they give less, will they do less, you're seeing increments of $60 to $80 depending if you count all the funds together or the obama campaign funds, either way , under $100. that's a small donation. that is not only fat cats .

   >> now, adam greene, the progressive change campaign committee put out a statement today. he's came on here and voiced this worry the president could be alienating his base of support. he offers this perspective. every one of president obama 's donations came in before he began pushing cuts to the social security , medicare, medicaid benefits we depend on. he will lose million ins donations and millions of volunteer hours from people who once passionately supported him. two things about that, no evidence president was pushing any such cuts. according to mitch mcconnell 's own account was the president was sitting there faking some kind of possible agreement that he never reached on those things. but what do you make of adam 's point in general? guantanamo , public option, all those things were already present in our politics and had already been used as predictors for a weaker base of support.

   >> this is the closest thing we're seeing on the left to a pledge or grover norquist style accountability movement. i think it's an interesting tactic. i interviewed adam today as well, but i think it's misplaced to argue in the face of these numbers that there's a significant that's thousands of grassroots donors who are going to oppose or show their distrust of certain decisions they probably do disagree with by doing a donor strike in this way. i don't think the evidence is there. that's what's interesting about the numbers today. other point i'll make quickly, president obama has more support among democrats than any democratic president in the last 50 years. in the broad-based polling, democrats are standing by this president.

   >> and the democrats who complain about obama 's discussion about the social safety net seem to have no idea or weren't old enough to know that bill clinton was the first and only president to repeal a provision of the social security act , in effect, abolishing welfare to no objection, no objection from that side of our politics. ari melber of the nation, thank you very much for joining me tonight.

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