Obama's small donors, in their words

(AP) - WHY THEY GIVE

-"For the last many elections, I've always voted for the person who was the lesser of two evils," said Duran Atkins, 50, owner of an adventure travel company in Bozeman, Mt. "Obama gets it."

-"He's got it," said Steve Bennett, 55, of Tucson, Ariz. "He seems to me to be the best hope - not to use the worn-out phrase - to really bridge the chasm."

-"He has excited me in a way that no other candidate has," says Aaron Alpern, 46, a Chicago actor. "He talks to us like adults."

-"I would feel comfortable with him as president," says Haydon Grubbs, 77, a retired engineer from Shalimar, Fla. "It's actually a sigh of relief."

-"He actually made me believe that change was possible," says Marilyn Dickerson, 51, a vascular technologist from Stone Mountain, Ga.

-"I love his passion, I love his optimism," says Deb Schmidle, 53, a librarian at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

-"I saw Obama bringing something new to the whole thing," says John Jolly, 77, a retired librarian in Portland, Ore.

-"Within three sentences of hearing him, I knew he was something different," says Bonnie Reagan, 56, a Nashville consultant. "I've been captivated by him every since."

-"He just really electrifies you when you are listening to him," said Lena Bradley, a 78-year-old beauty salon owner in Washington. "He has something that's leading him."

THEY LIKE GETTING E-MAIL FROM THE CAMPAIGN

-"They very much will connect with you," says Dickerson, "You give your money and you're kept involved in every good or bad thing that happens."

-"The people who are running his campaign are very good at sending you constant e-mail - not so much haranguing you to donate, but making you feel a part of this movement," says Schmidle. "I love their constant communications. It's not just taking your money, but really trying to make connections with how it's going, where it's going."

-"The e-mail solicitations have been - they haven't overdone it," says Reagan. "They've been rational. They've been proactive, not reactive and they have not been fear-oriented."

THEY DON'T MIND GIVING AGAIN

-"It's kind of a risk assessment," said Bennett. "Initially you give him $150 and you hear and you listen to what he's saying."

-"Every time I have a chance," says Alpern. "We scrape by by the skin of our teeth. But it is also really important for both me and my wife to do what we can."

-"I think I might donate again now," says Dickerson.

-"I had to cut down on some other things I was donating to," says Gerald Cook, 67, a retired aerospace engineer in Denver.

-"I will give as long as he is running until November," said Bradley.

THEY FEEL LIKE INSIDERS

-"I joke with a friend of mine that 1.3 millionth of him is mine," says Alpern. "I do feel like I'm part of this big movement."

-"I really like the fact that he's getting a lot of small donations," says Schmidle. "It's kind of the whole backstory to Obama, which is people really feel a part of the movement."

-"The potential of change is the greatest when it happens from the bottom up," says Larry Levine, 59, the chair of a community services board in Hinton, W.Va. "That's a concept that he understands and has and will work with."

-"It makes me feel like I have a place in this country, that there are other voices of which I'm a part, and we are making a very loud sound in this country. And that feels very good," says Reagan.

-"It's just like if you were rooting for your special football team," says Bradley.

WHAT ABOUT HILLARY CLINTON?

-"She's not my first choice, but I'm certainly not going to do anything to her detriment that would end up assisting a McCain election," says Bennett.

-"I probably would not donate to her," says Alpern.

-"We've had enough of the Clintons," says Grubbs. "New direction, right?"

-"I want her over McCain, but I'm not going to do it with a warm and fuzzy heart," says Schmidle.

-"I haven't crossed that bridge yet," says Levine.

-"I'm not for her. But I would vote for her," says Reagan.