Monday, July 9, 2012

POTUS fund raising stats can be misleading.

The money race. Romney is reported to have raised $106 million in June to only $71 million for Obama. The associate press analysts reported that the average Romney donation was only $2,400. Obama plays the same game averaging down the average donation to make it look like the not-so-wealthy people are kicking in the dollars. Both parties play this misleading game.

Why? Because the average donation obscures the fact that the wealthy still buy influence, the low dollar donors do not. Let me give you an example. By way of illustration, if 200 people each donate $25 and one person donates $100,000, then the average donation is $522 ($105,000 divided by 201 persons). But guess what? None of the people who donated $25 will ever have an audience with the POTUS, but the person who kicked in $100,000 will. If you get many emails, like I do, to kick in your $25, they want it for two reasons. Of course they want the money, but they also want to lower the average donor amount.

I am not complaining, just pointing out that you should not be misled by inferring broad support for either candidate based on a calculation on the average donation.

Look deeper. See more clearly.

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