Seems they are having trouble raising all the money they’d like:
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.
Blogs For Victory 