When is a Billion not a Billion?

Today's riddle asks when is a billion dollars not a billion dollars? The answer is simple: a billion dollars is not a billion dollars when it is the fund raising goal of the Obama re-election campaign.

Anyone who paid attention to the campaign for most of 2011 heard repeatedly how president Obama was planning to raise one billion dollars for his re-election campaign. In the years up to 2008, presidential campaigns were run on public funds. Each side received about 85 million dollars for the general election. During the primaries, candidates also got matching funds comensurate with their donations from private individuals. The really big money was pushed out of the presidential race. Then in 2008, Obama pulled out of public funding at the last moment. McCain stayed with the public funding while Obama raise much, much more and outspent McCain in a big way. For 2012, Obama made clear he was going even bigger; hence, the goal of 1 billion dollars.

Well now there has been more than a year of fund raising completed. Obama has already attended more fund raisers than George W. Bush had in his entire re-election campaign in 2004 and it is only April. Of course, the problem for Obama has been that many fewer folks are giving and those who are giving are making smaller donations. That's right, Obama is having money troubles. Obama has already told both campaign committees for Democrats in both the House and the Senate that they will get no money from the DNC this year; everything will go to his re-election campaign. That move was unprecedented; imagine the national party not giving to any of the candidates of the party for the House or the Senate. Now, the campaign has "announced" its fund raising goals: Obama will raise $750 million and that will include all funds raised by the DNC. Translated into English, that means that Obama is actually now shooting for half of what was the goal at the start of the campaign. The campaign is also throwing in the DNC funds in order to make the miss on fund raising look smaller.

Money is not the most important thing in political campaigns. If you do not believe that, just look at the Rick Santorum campaign which won 12 states on a shoestring budget. Nevertheless, the level of fund raising is an important indicator of the prospective electoral strength for Obama. In short, Obama is in trouble. Many who were for him last time are not this time. More important, many of Obama's 2008 supporters are no longer enthusiastic enough to contribute. Most likely that also means that many of Obama's 2008 supporters will not be enthusiastic enough to vote. Like I said: Obama is in trouble.