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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review July 5, 2007 / 19 Tamuz, 5767

Fund-raising's future

By Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The past and the future dueled with one another over the past six months as the Obama and Clinton campaigns each worked to raise funds for the coming election — and the future won.


Sen. Hillary Clinton, married to the best fund-raiser on the planet, pursued the old, time-tested way of raising money by concentrating on wealthy donors and special-interest political-action committees. Even though Bill had refused to take PAC contributions during his 1992 race for president, Hillary openly — and eagerly — solicited them.


Meanwhile, Sen. Barack Obama pursued the new method of fund-raising by enlisting large numbers of individual donors online and abjuring PAC contributions. He reports having gotten donations from 258,000 separate individuals, while her donors total only about one quarter as many.


The future defeated the past, as Obama raised a reported $32 million for his primary campaign while Hillary came up short with only about $21 million (not counting funds that can't be spent unless she wins the nomination).


The battle of styles says less about who'll win the primary — our bet is still Hillary — than it does about where political fund-raising is headed. The Internet makes mass solicitation increasingly possible, since it is instantaneous and doesn't demand the large up-front outlays that needed for direct mail and telemarketing — the comparable strategies in the old era.


Obama's advantage should continue to grow, since his staff reports that 90 percent of his donors can keep on giving - while a great many of Hillary's contributors are "maxed out" and can't give more.


More than any campaign-finance reform laws, Obama's success — massive, rapid fund-raising without relying primarily on rich donors or special-interest PACs — suggests that a purification of the financing of political campaigns may, indeed, be at hand.


As Americans become more and more used to backing up their electoral preferences with their credit cards and as they grow more comfortable with online giving, the power of the few to make themselves felt by massive campaign contributions appears to be ebbing. Obama has now taken to the next level the massive fund-raising pioneered by Howard Dean during his 2004 run.


In the old style of fund-raising, contacts with a few wealthy fat cats was the key. Wining and dining them at state dinners and in the Lincoln Bedroom was the key to President Bill Clinton's fund-raising for his own re-election in 1996 and his wife's Senate candidacy four years later. But in the new world, the list is everything. Using ideology or charismatic personal appeal to amass a large group of donors — and keeping their e-names handy — is the key to generating mega-bucks in the future.


Not only is mass fund-raising from hundreds of thousands of donors cleaner and less susceptible to special-interest favor-peddling, it's also faster, more effective and more cost-efficient than the old techniques ever were.

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JWR contributor Dick Morris is author, most recently, of "Outrage: How Illegal Immigration, the United Nations, Congressional Ripoffs, Student Loan Overcharges, Tobacco Companies, Trade Protection, and Drug Companies Are Ripping Us Off . . . And". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) Comment by clicking here.



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