Obama the alum
by WonkoKevin
Since I graduated from there, my experience with the University of Illinois is this: they ask me for money, and I give it to them. Please note the path of the money: from me, to them. Apparently one of the candidates has figured out how to get the money to go the other way, from the university (or more accurately, from the university’s faculty and students) back to them. I was looking at the excellent financial donor data over at opensecrets.org and noticed that Barack Obama was only one of two candidates who had significant funds from people from universities. Obama has collected $109k from Harvard University folk, while Bill Richardson has gotten $32k from University of New Mexico folk. Obama received his law degree from Harvard, and was the Harvard Law Review’s first African-American president. His Harvard days are often used by both himself and others as part of the Obama-Narrative. Obama has also collected almost $100k from University of California faculty and students. Apparently one’s post-graduate degree is worth a lot more than one’s baccalaureate, as Columbia University faculty and students, where Obama got his B.A., have only given him $24k in donations.
