Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Intellectual Dishonesty

From the International Herald Tribune:

In an effort to cast himself as independent of the influence of money on politics, Senator Barack Obama often highlights the campaign contributions of $200 or less that have amounted to fully half of the $340 million he has collected so far.

But records show that a third of his record-breaking haul has come from donations of $1,000 or more - a total of $112 million, more than the total of contributions in that category taken in by either Senator John McCain, his Republican rival, or Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, his opponent in the Democratic primaries.

Several points:
  1. The first paragraph discusses "percentages" the second switches to "totals"
  2. Sen. Obama raised a lot more money than either Sen. Clinton or Sen. McCain, so it's no wonder that his "total" large donations was larger.
  3. His "percentage" of large donations is smaller than both Sen. Clinton and Sen. McCain.
  4. In fact, almost half of McCain donors have contributed the maximum (or more), which means that an increadibly large percentage of his total donations is from people who have paid the maximum (probably around 75%)
  5. In sum, it's crazy that 170 million dollars has come from people who gave under $200 dollars.
  6. Don't believe everything you read on Drudge

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