After 2000 Loss, Obama Built Donor Network From Roots Up

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

Source: New York Times

When Barack Obama announced to friends over brunch in 2002 that he planned to run for the United States Senate, one of their first questions was how he could possibly raise the necessary millions.

After all, two and a half years after he had taken quite a “spanking,” as he put it, in his bid to unseat an incumbent congressman, he was still struggling to pay off a $20,000 debt, eking out donations of $1,000 here, $2,000 there.

Improbably, Mr. Obama, running as something of an outsider, wound up raising $15 million and winning that 2004 Senate race. Now that he is running for president, his fund-raising prowess has helped make him the chief rival to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/us/politics/03obama.html?hp=&pagewanted=print