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Comment by pink_dinner | Hacker News Reader

I remember my co-workers at the time thought that it was a brilliant move that Obama opted-out and defeated Mccain because he wasn’t limited by funds.

Now that we have Republican candidates using this to their full advantage, it needs to be stopped.

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It needs to be stopped not because it's a different party, but because of who is donating the money. In the Obama campaign his fundraising records were set by small, individual donors. The GOP on the other hand is using a few mega donors (along with candidates like Clinton). This kind of unlimited funding from a couple hundred people is what should scare every democracy-loving person.

Edit: I write this as a nominal Clinton supporter here, so I really feel my opinion is unbiassd here.

> It needs to be stopped not because it's a different party, but because of who is donating the money. In the Obama campaign his fundraising records were set by small, individual donors The GOP on the other hand is using a few mega donors (along with candidates like Clinton)

It's not so simple.

First of all, it's hard for us to accurately compare 2008 and 2016, because there's a lot of data about the 2016 race that won't be released for a while. On top of that, the way data is broken down has changed, so not all of the buckets are 1-1 comparable. That said, most (53%) of Obama's money came from donations of over $200, and almost a third (27%) came from donations of $2,300 or more.[0]. In January, 95% of Clinton's money came from donors under $100.

You can say that we need to look at PACs as well. But actually, most PACs are still limited in the amount of money they can accept per person as well. It's only independent-expenditure-only committees that can take unlimited contributions. Even then, you'd be surprised how little money they actually raise. For example, only 25% of pro-Clinton money went to PACs, and that's counting all PACs, including ones subject to contribution limits[2].

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by 'candidates like Clinton' - in the presidential race, there's only one candidate who's not in the GOP and not Clinton. Is that meant to be a comment about Sanders?

[0] http://www.factcheck.org/2008/07/average-campaign-contributi...

[1] http://time.com/4208386/hillary-clinton-fundraising-bernie-s...

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/electio...

"It needs to be stopped not because it's a different party, but because of who is donating the money. In the Obama campaign his fundraising records were set by small, individual donors. The GOP on the other hand is using a few mega donors (along with candidates like Clinton)."

So, the Democratic Party then too?

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