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).
This morning, the Obama campaign fired off an emotionally-tinged fundraising email to their supporters. The urgent message stated:
“The Obama campaign and the DNC ended June with a combined total of nearly $72 million in the bank. It’s a healthy number. But McCain and the RNC together still have a huge cash advantage, and we need your help to close the gap.
As I mentioned in my video message to you earlier in the week, we’re facing a Republican machine with unprecedented resources at its disposal. The McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee finished June with nearly $100 million in the bank.”
(Emphasis theirs).
… But in an under-stated blog post, Politico’s Ben Smith informs us that the Obama campaign’s math was off by $20 million:
“In total, the Democrats have some $92 million on hand, to the combined Republican total of $95 million.”
(The Obama email said they only had $72 million — now we find out they have $92 million).
But, why would Obama want to mislead his supporters like that?
Of course, the cynical observation is that Obama’s campaign wanted to fire-up their supporters by pretending as if they were losing the money game to the GOP. Remember, Hillary’s donors didn’t come to her rescue until they knew she really needed it (when she invested $5 million of her own money.) The point is that political donors are more likely to become emotionally involved if they believe they are needed — and that their candidate is in danger of being beaten — so there was an incentive for Obama to play-up the disparity.
But a less sinister — and more charitable — analysis is that their math was off by $20 million. Of couse, this would be a gross error for such a polished political operation to commit.
But, par for the course for someone like Barack Obama.
UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: And while $52 million might seem a hefty sum, it doesn’t work too well when you burned through $42 million at the same time…and you’ve eschewed public financing, which means that you’re money has to last all the way to November. Obama is said to be getting together 2,000 paid staffers…five times what President Bush had in 2004…the guy must already think that he’s President.
For the first time in the campaign, Republican John McCain in May raised about the same amount of money, $22 million, as Democrat Barack Obama.
McCain also closed the gap in the amount of cash the two parties’ presumptive presidential nominees have in the bank at their respective disposals as they enter the first phase of the general election.
McCain reported having about $32 million in cash for primary-related expenses at the end of May.
Obama reported having $43 million in hand at the start of June — but about $10 million of that is dedicated to the general election.
Obama’s fundraising in May marked a sharp dropoff after months of record-breaking donations. Even in difficult times, such as the key loss he suffered in Pennsylvania in April, Obama brought in a steady flow of cash that usually topped $30 million a month.
The surprising cash parity between McCain and Obama means the candidates begin the general campaign more evenly matched than many experts expected, although things could change swiftly given Obama’s ability to raise money through small online contributions.
According to Obama’s campaign, the drop in donations was caused in part by a shift in focus from bringing in big money to homing in on the delegates needed to clinch his party’s nomination.
At the same time, he was forced to burn through his cash reserve in the final round of primaries, which were hotly contested by a significantly underfunded Hillary Rodham Clinton.
That last bit is courtesy of Operation Chaos - and the report goes on to note that in May, Obama spent $27 million to McCain’s $12 million and that, in and of itself, justified the Chaos effort. The conventional wisdom is that Obama will just gear right back up and raise whatever amount he wants or needs. And, so far, Obama has been a fundraising phenomena…but I do wonder just how much more he can garner? If the well of Democratic money really bottomless, or will the half billion spent on the primaries have drained the collective bank account? Time will tell - but we can at least be sure that Obama won’t just be able to spend his way into the White House; McCain will be able to put up a fight which will force Obama to climb out of his shell and actually confront the voters, and that is the place where we can crush him. Obama as a version of the “un-named Democrat” is unbeatable…Obama as a further left version of McGovern is very, very beatable.
It will also be interesting to see which campaign paradigm works - Obama’s is a top-down, massively funded drive, while McCain’s is a decentralised lean and mean campaign. I’m beginning to believe that McCain might really be on to something here, and that Obama will just be an over-funded dinosaur trying to act like the latest sports car.
The Democrat once made a conditional agreement to accept taxpayer money from the public financing system, and accompanying spending limits, if his Republican opponent did, too.
No more.
The chance to financially swamp John McCain — and maneuver for an enormous general election advantage — proved too great an allure.
Obama, a record-shattering fundraiser, reversed course Thursday and decided to forgo some $85 million so he could raise unlimited amounts of money and spend as much as he wants.
“It’s not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections,” Obama said in announcing that despite his previous commitment, he would rely only on private donations because “the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken.”
And with that, the first-term Illinois senator tarnished his carefully honed image as a different kind of politician — one who means what he says and says what he means — while undercutting his call for “a new kind of politics.”
McCain, for his part, painted the issue as a character test, saying: “This election is about a lot of things. It’s also about trust. It’s about keeping your word.”
Question: Is Obama confident of winning, and thus doesn’t care, or is that he realises he’s not doing well and needs every cent just to try and win it in a squeeker?
My bet is the latter - though we’ll have to see if Obama really has all the cash he says he does…seems to me that we’ve seen some stories of late of Democrats not being able to get the money together…of course, maybe part of Hillary deal on concession would be her rolodex of illegal donors? Plus, perhaps Al Gore can go get some money from some monks?
Facing a $15 million budget shortfall, organizers of the Democratic National Convention are cutting events while hoping Barack Obama’s emergence as the likely presidential nominee will spur his vast army of donors to pony up.
The convention’s host committee was expected to report on its financial position late Monday in Denver. The committee is under contract to the Democratic National Committee to raise $40.6 million of an overall convention budget of about $70 million. Several people knowledgeable about the committee’s activities projected it would be about $15 million short of its goal.
The convention opens on Aug. 25, giving the committee just 10 weeks to come up with the money. Some faulted the slowing economy and the protracted Democratic primary as the two major reasons the city’s host committee has struggled to raise the cash.
“It’s a significant amount and a big concern,” acknowledged Rick Ridder, a Denver-based Democratic strategist who has helped the city’s convention efforts.
As recent as a week or two ago I was stating my certainty that Democrats would come up with the money - but now they are talking of cutting down the show, which means not only are they short, but they have fading hopes of making up the shortfall. Obama is still generating massive enthusiasm…among upper class whites and black Americans; could it be that these voters, enthused for Obama, don’t really care too much about the Democratic party, as an institution? Also, did Obama and Hillary just drain so much cash out of Democratic donors that they are having trouble pulling more money out of their pockets? Or is it that the varied divisions in the party, masked by Obama-mania, are resulting in a drop off in overall Democratic enthusiasm for November?
Time will tell, but it isn’t good news for the Democrats than in a year where the political stars have all aligned in their favor that they can’t raise enough money to cover their own convention.
The Democratic Party is struggling to raise money for its convention in Denver on Aug. 25-28, with fund-raising by the host committee falling far short of the party’s goals and lagging behind the Republicans’ efforts for their convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
So far, the Denver host committee is about $15 million short of the $40.6 million it must raise by June 16. With only $25 million raised so far, the committee is scrambling to offer a new round of special deals for corporate underwriters, as well as to devise a backup plan should the fund-raising fall short and plans for the convention need to be scaled down.
My bet is that the HillBama campaigns are just sucking up all the Democratic money out there - which puts into question just how much they (and the auxiliary leftwing groups) will have for the fall campaign. I read somewhere recently that Hillary and Obama have raised (and mostly spent) half a billion dollars betweem themselves during this primary campaign. Naturally, Democrats will come up with sufficient funds to cover their convention, but a large question mark is starting to appear about Democratic finances.
Not a lot of money, but I’m not a rich man, either…but it is time, dear conservatives, that we stepped firmly up to the plate. Now that we’re 99% sure Obama will be the nominee and while the current lay of the political land indicates a renewed Democratic Congressional majority, we daren’t fail to do whatever we can to ensure McCain’s victory. Backing McCain is taking on the characteristic of a basic act of patriotism, because someone as ultra-left as Obama will do great harm to the United States.
Yes, I know all the objections - real and imagined - to McCain from my fellow conservatives…but that doesn’t matter in the least right now. Its a time of choosing. You can have McCain and a bit of conservatism plus a war won, or you can have Obama and pure liberalism plus a lost war.
Still far short of the vast amounts HillBama raise, but a gain is a gain:
Senator John McCain raised approximately $18 million during the month of April, according to a spokeswoman for his campaign.
That is the most that McCain has raised in any month of the campaign so far. But it is less than half of what the Obama campaign says it raised in the month of March, $41 million, and less than what Senator Clinton reoprtedly raised that month as well, $20 million.
The Democratic rivals have not yet released their April fundraising numbers.
The Arizona Republican, who is scheduled to receive the nomination of his party for president in September, has dedicated considerable time and resources to his fundraising effort in recent weeks.
McCain’s campaign, which needed a $4 million loan in order to keep operating at the end of 2007, has seen a remarkable turnaround in its fundraising prowess. At a New York City fundraiser in early May, McCain raised $7 million in one evening.
Under a new fundraising structure created by the campaign and the Republican National Committee, a donor can give up to $70,000 to the “McCain Victory 2008,” significantly more than the $2,300 individual donor limit set by campaign finance laws. If a donor gives the maximum amount the money is split into multiple funds that all benefit McCain’s campaign: the first $2,300 of that money goes to the McCain campaign itself, the next $28,000 goes to the RNC, and the rest is divided among four swing states the campaign plans to target in the general election. Those targeted states are: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado and New Mexico.
Interesting that this early on McCain is targeting Wisconsin and Minnesota - both States when for Kerry in 2004, and McCain is already trying to poach them…and I’ll bet he’s got a good shot at both. The bad news is that we’ve got to shore ourselves up in Colorado, which is becoming the most Democrat of the Mountain West States (though still, on balance, Republican); New Mexico is a State we lost in 2000, won in 2004…both by excruciatingly narrow margins, so it could literally go either way in 2008.
Anyways, a good month for McCain on a lot of levels - Democrats still battling, Obama on the defensive and looking absurd on foreign affairs, Democrats still spending money like water, McCain able to present a consistent message of genuine reform…and his fundraising is picking up. Now, how about you stop by and pony up?
WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. John McCain raised more than $15 million in March for his presidential campaign, a top performance for the likely Republican nominee that still falls far short of the cash gathered by rival Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The amount was confirmed to The Associated Press by two campaign officials speaking on condition of anonymity because the numbers haven’t been made public.
One official said McCain intends to accept public financing in the general election - a sum of about $84 million. McCain donors are now being asked to supplement that public financing with donations to the Republican National Committee, with a goal of raising $120 million through a joint Victory Committee.
And, yes, it is far short of what the Democrats are raking in - but, fortunately, they are also spending money like water in their nomination fight. Broke and exhausted is just how we want the Democrats in September.
Meanwhile, we do have to help our man McCain out, and just this evening I ponied up $50.00. Isn’t it time that you, too, joined the battle? Head over to McCain’s website, and make a donation for victory.
