Small Donors Funding Obama Campaign

There is little doubt that this is going to be the most expensive campaign in United States history. Fortunately, it looks like President Obama is going to have the funds to compete against the Wall Street candidate, Willard Mitt Romney. The president's fund-raising grows larger with each passing month.

In January, the president raised about $29.1 million dollars. In February, his fundraising efforts yielded a little over $45 million. That figure rose again in the month of March, as the Obama campaign raised about $53 million. And the best part is where most of the money is coming from -- small donors. About 567,000 donors gave money to Obama in March, with about 190,000 of them being first-time donors. Over 97% of the donations were in amounts of $250 or less, and the average donation was $50.78.

That is good news for the Obama campaign -- both the amount of money raised and the fact that it was done by small donors giving less than $250 each (because these donors have not reached their limit and will likely give again. It is also encouraging that there was a large number of first-time donors among them.

It is unlikely that Romney will be able to match the president in his fund-raising. Most of his donations are from the rich and come in the form of much larger donations. However, many of those donors have already given the maximum allowed and cannot give any more. But that does not mean Romney won't have plenty of money to back his campaign. The money will just have to be spent by the super-PACs instead of his campaign.

There are several right-wing super-PACs raising a ton of money to attack the president -- and there is no limit on how much money can be given (secretly) to a super-PAC. One of them , created by Republican operative Karl Rove, just received a secret $10 million donation from a single donor. And that is far from the only huge donation given to these super-PACs.

The candidates may be President Obama and Willard Mitt Romney, but it looks like the real fight is going to be between the small donors vs. the corporate super-PAC donors. Fortunately, the small donors have the more likeable and trustworthy candidate.