Presumed Republican candidate for 2012 presidential elections, Mitt Romney has out beat President Barrack Obama, yet again, in raising campaign funds for the upcoming November elections. On Monday, team Romney took to the social media site of Twitter to announce that the campaign raised $101.3 million for the month of July in conjunction with the Republican National Committee. The Massachusetts governor managed to raise approximately $25 million more than that raised by the Obama campaign.
On Monday, the Romney team Tweeted "Every Bit Helps" referring to the claims that most of the money, 98 percent, was raised through small donations under $250 (@MittRomeny). Alone, the Romney Campaign raised $75 million. In April the Romney campaign announced that its goal was to raise $800.
According to the official Romney Campaign, the lowest donation specified is $15, but there is an option for supporters to donate a lesser amount.
In June, the Romney campaign announced that together with the Republican Committee, it raised around $106 million. The fund is known as Republican National Committee known as the Romney Victory Fund. June's report was a record breaker for the aspiring president. For the same month, the Obama campaign announced its funds for June to be $71 million. In May, the Obama campaign manages an amount of $60 million, while Romney was at $77 million.
While, it is a general consensus that raising campaign funds is still carried out the old fashioned way through phone-calls and personal rallying. However, the new media has become a tool that cannot be ignored in the equation. Both Candidates are campaigning as diligently in the web-world as in the real world. And while, there might not be a strong co-relation between the format of the official campaign sites and expanding supporters, the ease at which an established supporter can donate money to a candidate with a click of a button is sure to play a role in getting the smaller donations. For example, a supporter donating $1 is less likely to go to the trouble to make a donation if the online process of doing so is complicated.
Here is where the two candidates differ in approach. The Mitt Romney Official website is simple and use-friendly. You click on the page and it takes you directly to the donations page, with amounts ranging from $15 to $250, with an option of "Other," so an amount different from the options listed. On the other hand, the Obama site is a little more complicated and slightly troublesome to get through. The website requires one to sign in and sign up to receive email alerts and only then can one make a donation. It would be curious to see whether political scientists to see whether the tangent use-friendliness of a candidates donation site impacts smaller donors.
When it comes to the old fashioned style of campaigning, a book called The Rise of the President's Permanent Campaign by Brendan J. Doherty showed that President Obama has held more fund-raisers for re-elections than any president in the history of America.
