Middle-Income Americans Giving Big

July 16, 2007 — -- Robert Allen, an unemployed salesman from North Carolina, knows all about former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' expensive haircut, his work for a hedge fund and the 28,000-square-foot mansion he built with some of the millions he earned as a trial lawyer.

But when he's had some extra cash in recent months, Allen has sent it to Edwards' presidential campaign. With each check he writes, he said, he thinks about his 23-year-old daughter, who is mentally disabled and living in a group home.

"She's doing as well as she possibly can, and I think John Edwards is the type of person who would fight for that type of person, to make sure their standards of life are correct," said Allen, 57, a registered independent who lives in Claremont, N.C.

"I haven't given a lot of money; I don't have a lot of money to give," he continued. "But I'm afraid that some other people who are running, and certainly the current administration, they don't care about individuals who can't take care of themselves."

So far, Allen has donated $319.53 to Edwards, according to Federal Election Commission records released Sunday. His latest check, $19.53 sent in June, was part of a birthday fundraising appeal recognizing the year of the candidate's birth.

Allen is part of an explosion in the number of small-dollar donors who are sending money to the 2008 presidential candidates. Though most of the candidates are fabulously wealthy -- and supported by powerful interest groups that are drumming up bundles of checks for $2,300 each, the federal maximum for individuals -- they are also receiving an unprecedented outpouring of support from individuals who are giving small donations.

"We are really witnessing a sea change in the financing of campaigns," said Anthony Corrado, a government professor at Colby College in Maine who studies campaign finance laws and practices. "We have moved from a process where candidates would largely rely on checks of $1,000 or more, to a process where the small donors matter much, much more. It's becoming more and more bottom-up, rather than top-down."