Rumored for days that he would raise close to the recording breaking 26 million garnered by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama made it official today. In the first quarter of 2007, he has tallied $25 million in contributions. Some funds are from big-wig contributors such as George Soros and David Geffen, but an astonishing 100,000 regular janes and joes contributed as well.
As previously reported in my column on Associated Content, Obama's presidential campaign. much like his previous US Senate campaign in 2004, is built from the ground up. During the closing weekend of the first quarter, ordinary people around the country opened their homes and places of business to small gatherings of Obama supporters. But 100,000 people? Even in traditionally Red State cities such as Indianapolis, Indiana, including its toney suburbs of Carmel and Zionsville, dozens of meetings were held around 2 pm Saturday, March 31, as supporters joined in a live video-feed conversation with Senator Obama.
During the same weekend, March 31-April 1, previous donors both large and small (that would be me) received a call to encourage additional financial support. "Fund-raisers, frank in their approach and reportedly dedicated to their candidate, succeeded in record numbers."
Now the public has found its own voice through the internet. Obama strikes a chord with that voice when he says, "Across our country, everyday people like you have experiences and ideas that haven't previously been heard. This is your chance to speak your mind and help set the policies that will guide this campaign and change the country."
"What's your story? What's your big idea? We want to hear it."
To date, Obama's own position on the war in Iraq has seemed prophetic. In 2003, prior to the start of the war, he is on record as one of the earliest official dissenters. Not only on idealogical grounds, but on practical, common sense grounds as well.
His recent statement on health care brightened the hearts of millions of Americans. One senses his statements are a great deal more than political babble.
"In the 2008 campaign, affordable, universal health care for every single American must not be a question of whether, it must be a question of how. We have the ideas, we have the resources, and we will have universal health care in this country by the end of the next president's first term."
With the first presidential primaries over nine months away, and the presidential election itself an additional 11 months down the line, it remains to be seen which candidate will be left standing in the end of what promises to be an engaging political battle. This quarter, however, over $25 million has been placed on Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.
At this rate of popularity, Obama may indeed become the de facto leader of the country long before the Presidential election of 2008.
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