A treasure chest has opened in Onondaga County for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton since she won New York’s primary election in February.
After the Feb. 5 primary, donors in the county gave $27, 618 during the rest of the month, according to the Clinton campaign’s filings with the Federal Election Commission. The Clinton campaign received six times as much money in the month after the primary than it did the month before.
Clinton (D-N.Y.) is seeing post-election support that is a result of her victory, said Robert McClure, the Chapple Family Professor of Citizenship and Democracy at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. McClure argued that the competitiveness of Clinton’s race with Sen. Barack Obama and Obama’s stronger-than-expected showing in New York led Clinton’s supporters to open their wallets.
“It was never assumed Hillary would be tested in the New York primary,” McClure said. “So her New York friends weren’t as activated as Obama’s were. The results here and elsewhere made it clear that this race is close, and it rallied her base.”
Clinton won New York’s primary against Sen. Barack Obama, (D-Ill.), 57 percent to Obama’s 40 percent.
In recent national fundraising, Clinton has lagged behind Obama in their race for the Democratic nomination for president. In February, Obama raised $55 million nationally and Clinton raised $35 million.
But at home, Clinton’s support has not faltered. Some Clinton fundraising highlights:
- Clinton raised $1,150 a day in Onondaga County from Feb. 6 to Feb. 29.
- Clinton’s local haul after the primary was 81 percent of her fundraising so far in 2008. The campaign’s 2008 total from Onondaga County contributors through the end of February was $33,918.
- 66 individual donors gave to the campaign between Feb. 5 and Feb. 29. The average donation was $418.
- After the primary, Clinton beat Obama in the fundraising race in the county $27,618 to Obama’s $9,966. Before the primary, Obama raised $10,808 while Clinton raised $6,300.
- The top three ZIP codes in the county for Clinton were 13224 in Syracuse ($7,768), 13104 in Manlius ($6,250) and 13066 in Fayetteville ($4,900).
In Fayetteville, Martin Staller gave twice to the Clinton campaign after the primary — $1,000 on Feb. 7 and another $250 on Feb. 17.
Clinton’s experience and preparedness for the presidency led him to donate, Staller said. “She’s really qualified for the job and she’s got the guts to do it,” Staller said. “She has a good grasp of the situation. She knows how to twist arms to get things done.”
For Staller, political contributions have been a key piece to citizenship since he first donated to Adlai Stevenson’s 1952 presidential bid. Stevenson, a Democrat, lost the election to Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.
While political contributions are a big part of his life, Staller argued that money has become too much of an issue in American politics. “We have to spend all this money to free up the airwaves for the candidates,” he said. “We’re paying through the nose and only a small portion of the population benefits from advertising. It’s a terrible cost to everybody.”
Twisting arms is what the Clinton campaign may have to do to keep up its fund-raising efforts, argued John Freie, chair of the political science department at Le Moyne College. Many of Clinton’s donors have already given the maximum of $2,300 for the primary. The campaign will have to work hard to attract new donors, said Freie.
“There’s obviously money and people for her here, so she’ll keep coming back,” Freie said. “It’s not necessarily a Central New York focus, either. They’re going to get money wherever they can.”
(Heath D. Williams is a junior newspaper major.)
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