Obama outsmarts the Other Candidates by Not Outsourcing.

according to CNN this afternoon on the Situation Room, other campaigns who are jealous of having oursourced their merchandise and not being able to count it as a donation are now beginning a whispering campaign against obama. he was smart enough to see direct and so can count it as a donation. This has rivials unhappy.
CNN talked to the campaign and the direct merchandise is one percent of the total donations.
I have bought online from the campaign and they say it's a donation. I agree they rivals starting the whispering campaign are jealous for not thinking of this. obama is simply more savvy. And since it is only 1 percent of the donations, as Obama has said, they are far ahead in the amount of donors that they don't need to play with the numbers or hide anything.


WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, is breaking fundraising records in his bid for the White House, but some people seem to be questioning the way he is adding up his numbers.

Even though he is a fresh face in a presidential race that boasts several veteran U.S. senators, current and former governors and the former mayor of New York City, Obama is beating them all when it comes to individual donors and the amount raised so far in the battle for the White House. How many individual contributors you ask? How about 258,000. He is the only African-American candidate in the race and on the campaign trail, Obama is treated like a rock star.

“You get stories of people who come to these Obama events and say, ‘I haven’t much been interested in politics, here, I’ll give you the money out of my handbag,’” said John Dickerson, a political journalist with the on-line publication Slate. “That gives a sense of momentum, a sense of movement.”

The junior senator from Illinois, who has been in office a little more than two years, is growing his supporter base in a non-traditional way. People who buy Obama campaign hats, buttons and bumper stickers are being counted as part of that record breaking number of contributors. At least four other presidential candidates: Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona; Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado; Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California; and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio; also count such people as donors.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/07/17/obama-breaking-records-selling-merchandise/

Having not outsourced, he can't not report it.

of not reporting donations.

Which is what it would be if Obama hadn't reported donations.

He is not campaigning the usual way. The media and other political campaigns are scratching their heads. His campaign is different and he is being quite about it. However, it is showing in the numbers. He needs to continue what he is doing. It will only get better.

Some of the concerns about Obama were his lack of hard campaign experience. This is a brilliant strategy from him or one of his advisers.

How about those of the other candidates?

they did that. It is really really getting to be bad taste the way all the Obama supporters are constantly bashing the other candidates.

Do you all think that Obama would want his supporters to do this, I really don't believe this man would. He seems too honorable. And the reason he started selling his products himself is he did not ever imagine he could raise the money he did. He thought this would be a good source and was correct.

There was a thread on DU attacking Obama for including people who buy merchandise in his numbers before this thread with the whole story was posted.

I never for a second believed that Clinton was inevitable, even before I knew who would be running in 2008. Every day, though, you see a post from a Clinton supporter about how Obama's campaign is over, Clinton is inevitable. I think that Clinton supporters are going to be in for a surprise as we get closer to the election and more and more voters start really paying attention.

It's still anybody's game at this point and Clinton could certainly walk away with it, maybe even Edwards could as well, although that's unlikely with his current fundraising and the expedited primary system. But the Obama campaign is going to be one hell of a sight to see and I don't think Clinton supporters realize what they are in for.

So 258,000 - 2,580 is still 255,420 donors.