Obama has How Much Cash?

The huge gap between the dollars Obama's campaign claims to have raised and the cash on hand has lots of us wondering how much it is costing him to solicit and collect the funds in the first place. Papers are calling it a "burn rate." We are all assuming that he is getting all donations from the internet and his costs are near zero. From experience I can tell you that getting the second contribution is exponentially more difficult that getting the first and I'm almost positive that it's costing him a bundle to raise the contributions past the first one. The campaigns I've worked for operated phone rooms throughout the country and all that I know of paid the phone solicitors a piece of the "donation." In addition there are phone bills, rents, and very high compensation for managers. Those of you who have ever tried to "close" a sale know how difficult it can be. The fanatics will donate because you can scare the shit out of them, women were the particular target of one campaign I worked on and scaring them with abortion was easy, getting the check in hand required sending a messenger out to pick it up---and that costs like hell too---and many times the person was not there and no check was ever picked up. So the "burn rate" is either because the costs of solicitations are very high or some people are sticking donations in their pockets to pay bills that are unpublicized. BTW there are want ads galore in LA for phone solicitors for "environmental and political movements" and they are all Democratic. It is nearly impossible to get second, third, and fourth donations without contacting the donor on the phone.