COMMENTARY | Fundraising is a critical part of any presidential campaign. Without funding a campaign properly, supplies run out, staff members leave to find other paying jobs, and chartered flights get replaced with bus tickets. Many candidates rely mostly on wealthy donors contributing the $2,500 per person maximum directly to their campaigns, and in the case of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, those wealthy maxed out donors contribute millions more through his Restore our Future Super PAC -- $6.4 million from just 55 elite donors, according to Open Secrets.
Rep. Ron Paul's campaign differs in that his campaign is funded very heavily by donors who cannot contribute the hefty $2,500 donation. Of the more than 100,000 individual donors to Paul's campaign, only 7 percent of them, says NPR, are maxed out donors. Compare that to Mitt Romney's 55,000 individual donors, per the Huffington Post, 54 percent of which were all maxed out donors to his campaign.
So how is it that Paul, the former physician whose Texas residence of 42 years recently went on the market for a surprising normal $325,000 price tag, is able to financially compete with the likes of Bain Capital's money man? He accomplishes this feat through a network of online fundraising that is second to none. A grassroots concept from 2007, where smaller donors who felt ignored and forgotten by the media decided to coordinate the timing of their donations into a single 24 hour period. The Paul online fundraising technique, affectionately known as a "moneybomb," has allowed small donors to have a big impact at key moments for the campaign.
The next Ron Paul moneybomb, slated for Friday, December 16, is quite possibly the most critical one his campaign has ever faced. Never before has he polled in a statistical tie for first in a key early contest like Iowa. Paul's effort to get his message out has produced big results in key early states, but only after a multimillion dollar investment by his campaign. The need for more funding, and this final moneybomb of 2011, could be make or break for the frontrunner status of Paul's campaign.
Only time will tell if Paul will be able to reach out and gather up enough of his supporters for his final fundraising effort of the year. Can they bring him a million dollars, perhaps two? The grassroots group who has never let him down in the past will need to dig in deep on Friday to prepare their candidate for a long primary contest.
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