Is the Small-Donor Revolution All It’s Made Out to Be?

• By Laura MacCleery
• Special to Roll Call
• April 7, 2008, Midnight

For the first time ever, presidential candidates have managed to turn small donors into their greatest funding source, sending signals that the small-donor revolution — a mere experiment by Howard Dean just four years ago — has officially arrived. In February 2008, according to a Campaign Finance Institute analysis of the latest official campaign receipts, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) raised 56 percent of his contributions in increments of $200 or less, while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) raised 52 percent in similar amounts.