I have been tinkering with some of the numbers being published regarding campaign donations. I read about Obama having a very large percentage of "small amount" donors (47% of his 2007 money from donations of $1,000 or less, and 33% from $200 or less) and also that both he and Hilary eclipsed Bush's record-setting year in 2000 when he raised 96 million (they were both around 99 million). This is especially impressive due to the fact that the Democratic candidate is not even decided yet, and traditionally the majority of campaign money does not show up until AFTER the parties decide on their candidate. For TWO potential candidates of the SAME PARTY to surpass the previous donation record held by an actual nominee is astounding.

So I started wondering about the total number of people donating, but due to privacy laws and whatnot, campaigns are not required to report donor names if the donation is under a certain amount. This means you have to roughly back into the numbers based on percents and totals currently published, with a dash of creative license to determine your average variable(s). According to Obama's site, their claim is that almost 500,000 people have donated, which is an absurd amount based on previous election estimates.

I began to wonder if that's even possible, so I have tried to validate it using the matrix below. For the most part I have used percentages published by the CFI (specifically, "less than $200", "$1,000 or more", and "$2,300 or more"). As you can see I've taken some liberties in giving Obama slightly smaller averages and a 50-dollar bracket as a sub-section of the "less than 200 dollar" bracket. As pure scientific methodology that would be considered a reach, but from a practical standpoint I think it's a very valid amount. In doing so, my math comes extremely close to that 500,000 number. Freakish.

Clinton $98.7MM in 2007$ 175 avg (14%) = 78,960 donors$ 600 avg (11%) = 18,095 donors$1200 avg (25%) = 20,562 donors$2500 avg (75%) = 29,610 donors APPROX TOTAL = 147,227 donors

Obama $99.6MM in 2007$ 50 avg (16%) = 318,720 donors (holy shit!)
$ 150 avg (16%) = 106,240 donors$ 500 avg (15%) = 29,880 donors$1100 avg (21%) = 19,014 donors$2300 avg (33%) = 14,290 donors APPROX. TOTAL = 488,144 donors

* As an aside, it should be noted that Hilary's numbers alone are very impressive in their own right; enough to beat any other candidate in any previous year. *

If you were to back into numbers that are published by the CFI from Bush's record-setting year (only two brackets are available: over/under $1,000) depending on how generous you are to his average brackets, he probably had somewhere between 70,000 and 150,000 donors (and remember, that was a RECORD amount).

For Obama to have close to 500,000 in the year BEFORE the election when he's not even the candidate yet is completely unprecedented by any math, and by a huge margin. Two more points that should be taken into account: 1, Obama's 32-million dollar JANUARY suggests that his momentum and support are still growing and his overall public financing will likely shatter any previous election of all parties COMBINED, and 2, this astronomically historic show of support from "average" people is coming FROM A BROKEN ECONOMY. Somehow people who can't afford to are still giving anyway, and with a level of urgency that this country has probably never seen before (except maybe from hippies - but they didn't have any money).