As Allahpundit says, the whole “Obama got most of his campaign money from small donors” myth was busted even before election day 2008. Still the narrative marches on, used to perpetuate the image of Obama as a man of the people, sponsored by the same.

The latest mention of the narrative came from Obama himself, defending the massive donations he received from Wall Street — and Goldman Sachs — at a time when his party’s pushing financial regulatory reform (read: more government intervention).

So Politifact is here to debunk the myth…again.

“In the 2008 campaign, you got a lot of money, about $1 million from employees of Goldman Sachs,” Harwood said. “Your former White House counsel Greg Craig is apparently going to represent Goldman Sachs. In light of this case, do either of those things embarrass you?”

“No,” Obama said. “First of all, I got a lot of money from a lot of people. And the vast majority of the money I got was from small donors all across the country. And moreover, anybody who gave me money during the course of my campaign knew that I was on record again in 2007, and 2008, pushing very strongly that we needed to reform how Wall Street did business. And so, nobody should be surprised in the position that I’m taking now because it is one that I was very clear about in the course of the campaign.”

Which is complete bull. In fact, Bush and Kerry raised about the same amount of money from small donors in 2004 as Obama did in 2008.

In the general election, Obama got about 34 percent of his individual donations from small donors, people who gave $200 or less, according to a report from the Campaign Finance Institute. Another 23 percent of donations came from people who gave between $201 and $999, and another 42 percent from people who gave $1,000 or more.

His numbers for the primary were similar. He got about 30 percent of his money from donors who gave $200 or less. Another 28 percent of donations came from people who gave between $201 and $999, and 43 percent from people who gave $1,000 or more.

Thirty-four percent. Now, I’m no mathematician, granted, but thirty-four percent seems to be less than a “vast majority”. Like, significantly less than a “vast majority”.

Obama knows he’s lying and he knows the numbers are publicly-accessible. But to return to AP’s point, he figures just about no one will run across a fact check in the mainstream media. And he’s probably right. Which is a sad commentary on the state of American media.