McCain, RNC Report $96 Million on Hand
August 15th, 2008 at 08:44pm Mark Noonan
We’ll still probably be greatly outspent by the left since they have a large number of fat-cats who will donate to 527s, but we’re certainly not going into the fall campaign unarmed:
WASHINGTON - John McCain and the Republican National Committee started August with a hefty $96 million, financially flush and strongly positioned to compete with prolific fundraiser Barack Obama and (his) Democrats.
Republicans have been trying to even out the financial playing field after trailing Democrats in overall fundraising for most of the election cycle.
McCain has been a subpar fundraiser and has lagged the much-more adept Obama in monthly campaign tallies. But the RNC, with big-draw President Bush helping, has trounced its Democratic counterpart in collections. That has helped McCain and the GOP stay competitive financially with Obama and the Democratic National Committee.
The July numbers reflect how far McCain and the Republicans have come.
McCain raised $27 million in July, his largest one-month fundraising haul since clinching the GOP presidential nomination, and had $21 million available to spend, while the RNC brought in nearly $26 million, and had $75 million on hand to compete with the Democrats.
Money doesn’t win elections (just ask Hillary, who once had vastly more funds than Obama), but the fact that the GOP has managed, in this allegedly massively anti-GOP year, to have nearly $100 million ready for the fall campaign shows that, just perhaps, support for the GOP isn’t quite as anemic as the punditry and conventional wisdom claims. I think that a lot of illusions will be cleared away in November, on both sides (though I suspect that the left is in for a far ruder awakening than the right is).
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Republicans
6 Comments
1. gotbrains? | August 15th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
yep, support for the GOP is still strong among the corporate fat-cats who are ripping off the country. They’ll contribute anything to the GOP, so long as the GOPers facilitate the continued corporate plunder of America’s wealth.
Exxon, Monsanto, KBR, Halliburton, et al - is $100 million the best they can do? I’d think they’d be a whole lot more grateful than that. Perhaps they’re wary of spending too much on a loser. Selfish ingrates! After all the GOP did for them…
2. What? | August 15th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Mark,
Where is the post about how members of the military donated more money to Obama than to McCain? Those who made donations while serving abroad gave six times as much to Obama as they did to McCain.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080814/military_donations.html?.v=1
Okay,
Which one of you is going to explain this one? Have dirty liberals infiltrated the military? Is it the liberal media’s fault?
Ready, GO!
3. jayhay | August 16th, 2008 at 1:09 am
Now that’s a number worthy of John Sidney McCain III!
4. Stretchrun | August 16th, 2008 at 8:14 am
That new swift-boating book about Senator Obama is on top of the best sellers list; that should bring in a few bucks as well. Unless of course it was the RNC, Halliburton and Exxon that bought all the books.
5. Brian (Boston) | August 16th, 2008 at 11:35 am
I really do believe that we need to take the money out of politics. Whomever becomes President will beholden to the rich donors and not to the American people.
Could someone please explain how this is a freedom of speech issue? If a large portion of money is coming from big donors, doesn’t that disproportionately influence the race?
6. phnx | August 16th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
gotbrains? Apparently you don’t.
INstead of regurgitating leftist talking points you might want to actually do some research which would show you are wrong.
A check of the FEC would reveal that industry has donated $81.6 milion of which 54% went to Republicans and 46% to Dems, a $6.4 million advantage to republicans.
The top 10 PACs donated $18.8 million of which 81% went to Dems.
But the real difference is in the 527 soft money (no limit) fund raising where 36 of the top 50 527s were liberal. They raised over $60 million more than the conservative 527s.
The good news is that most of the mega bucks that the leftists raised was burned up during their primary, (thanks to Operation Chaos, while the Republicans kept their powder dry for the main event.