YouTube Money Race: Clinton Is Not Even In It

Barack Obama has been out-raising Hillary Clinton the past few months. There are all kinds of theories and explanations out there currently addressing this issue - some of the good, many of them bad. However, I have yet to hear the simplest one: The Obama campaign is actually trying.

Take for instance, YouTube. Each campaign has their own YouTube page (Clinton’s, Obama’s). In terms of the battle over subscribers and video views, Obama is clearly winning. But, he’s also edging Sen. Clinton out in effort. Compare the information boxes that accompany their respective video and channel pages:

Hillary Clinton’s:

Barack Obama’s:

The difference: Obama’s allows viewers to donate to his campaign right through YouTube using Google checkout, whereas Clinton’s doesn’t. Is this an earth shattering observation? No, it isn’t. But, it does underscore the difference between the campaigns. If you’re running a bottom up campaign, such as Sen. Obama’s these kinds of supporter-oriented features are essential to success. I first noticed this a few weeks ago, but I decided not to blog about it then, since it was a new addition to Sen. Obama’s page and I wanted to give the Clinton campaign an opportunity to update theirs. However, to date, they still have not revised Clinton’s YouTube account to allow this donation feature. So my question is: why not?