Obama's 'Netroots' Take On Clinton's Big Bundlers in 2008 Race

Bloomberg News: Obama's `Netroots' Take On Clinton's Big Bundlers in 2008 Race
By Kristin Jensen

About 300 backers of Illinois Senator Barack Obama gathered in Dallas this week to boost his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. The candidate was nowhere in sight.

He didn't need to be. The group, with no help from the Obama campaign, organized the Feb. 19 event on its own through the Web site Meetup.com.

The impromptu rally is exactly what Obama's campaign is counting on to help counter the fundraising prowess of the party's front-runner, Senator Hillary Clinton...."Obama has some real advantages because he is fresh and he is new and he is appealing to young people,'' said Joe Trippi, who ran former Vermont Governor Howard Dean's Democratic primary campaign in 2004....Obama, 45, is relying on a grassroots effort aimed at online activists -- what political operatives call a "netroots'' strategy -- to help him compete in a primary race that may come with an entry fee of $100 million. Clinton, 59, has already locked up many of the top Democratic business leaders and activists known as "bundlers'' who can use their networks to gather maximum contributions from individuals.

"A million people aren't coming to a $100-a-plate dinner tomorrow; a million people could go to the Internet tomorrow and give Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton $100,'' said Trippi, author of "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything.''

The stakes are higher than ever before as many presidential candidates decide to forgo the system of public financing of campaigns, and the spending limits it entails. Analysts expect each of the major party candidates eventually to raise $500 million for the November 2008 election....

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aRL79XfpWAcQ

There's a good article in Harper's about that.

if we're "not there yet" on dependence on the net for practical political purposes. Although it'll be interesting to see how things go this time, re. the net.

You are right. I do not dislike Obama,but it seems that this article tries to make out like Obama only has a large number of poor people supporting him. In truth he has a large amount of the former Hollywood supporters of Hillary Clinton. In addition, they raised $3 million dollars for him in one night.

I am surprised that noone has called me on the mistake about Obama getting $3 million dollors at an event held for him by David Geffen. Obama actually picked up $1.3 million on that night. Sorry about the mistake. I thought I had heard he picked up $3 million.

I'm not quite getting this brow-beating about financial backers other than a method to beat up on candidates. We will see unprecedented $$$$ in the upcoming election cycle.