Diary: 25,000 Members" But Only 5 Donors? Is This The New Math?

In our blog post, we noted that the founder of the group was claiming thousands of donors. And the group claims to have 25,000 members. A number which if true might give a hint of credibility to their claims. However, when it is becoming increasingly clear that <a href="http://www.vetsforobama.org">more and more real veterans are coming out in support of Barack Obama</a>, is it possible that VFF actually has 25,000 members?

Well, we're not from Missouri but frankly, we'd have to see the membership roster to even believe that they have 2,500 members, why?

First, in their last report, they have exactly 5 donors listed. One, two, three, four, five. So unless their marketing efforts are truly horrific, to the tune of a .00000005 response rate, we have to believe that their member list is slightly inflated.

Second, if you look at their web site traffic on public sites, you'll see that the traffic is very very light; with some recent days in May hovering around zero, wouldn't a 25,000 member person organization have more than a couple of thousand total visits a month?

Unfortunately, many news organizations are taking the 25,000 numbers as a fact versus a 'claim' -- if we claimed that a million people read everything we wrote, it wouldn't make it true -- but who knows maybe people would start writing that -- just like we are seeing these.

There's an old expression, a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on, and today from The Guardian in London, we have proof.

<blockquote>The £750,000 campaign launched by the 25,000-member Vets for Freedom implicitly criticises the Republican senator's anti-war Democrat rival Barack Obama, who has stated he wants to withdraw combat forces within 16 months of taking office.</blockquote>

On the other hand, if Vets For Freedom really does have 25,000 veteran members, we'll post the whole membership list right here, just send us the names guys, we'll put everyone up.

After all, we can easily fit in five names right here.