What the Quarterly Fundraising Totals Mean
The long-hyped revelation of first-quarter fundraising dollars by the seemingly infinite number of people running for President were officially released today (although our friend Barack Obama is dragging his feet in releasing his numbers). The big winner, as predicted, was Hillary Clinton, who pulled in $26 million in the last three months. Obama is expected to be nipping at her heels in the $22 million neighborhood. John Edwards continues to demand to be taken seriously with his impressive $14 million in funds raised Republican Mitt Romney, generally considered to running third place in the GOP field, raised $22 million, besting Rudy Giuliani's $15 million and John McCain's $12 million.
What do these six candidates have in common? They all broke the previous fundraising record for the first quarter of the year preceding the election, which was previously held by Al Gore who had raised $9.8 million in the first quarter of 1999. That's how out of control things have gotten. Even the 2004 primaries seem quaint in comparison to the tireless bombardment we've been clobbered over the head with this year in regards to an election that's more than 19 months away.
Unfortunately, the overzealous cable news-fueled hype of Election 2008 is only a small part of the problem. A much bigger problem is the self-fulfilling prophesy of the "frontrunner" sucking the oxygen out of everybody else. A dark horse candidate like Jimmy Carter or even Howard Dean would face almost impossible odds in getting past the deep-pocketed candidate cartel, the media punditocracy, and now, the frontloaded primaries which guarantee that the field will be wittled down to two or three candidates from each party after the Iowa caucus. Take Bill Richardson and Mike Huckabee as examples. I'm not sure what kind of money Huckabee raised, but Bill Richardson pulled in a reasonably impressive $6 million this past quarter. Four years ago, that would have been considered a good haul and would position Richardson for a solid ad blitz in the early primary states.
Richardson will still likely be able to afford such a blitz in Iowa, Nevada, and New Hampshire if his fundraising continues to go this well, but the frontloaded slate of spoiler primaries in California and Illinois will still make it impossible for a candidate like Richardson to effectively proceed even if he's hot off of Iowa, Nevada, and New Hampshire victories. There is no way money can flow in fast enough between mid-January and early February to allow Richardson to afford the media exposure necessary to make him a factor in California and Illinois. For all the blusterous hype about NEXT YEAR's primaries, the nomination process is almost assured to be the shortest and most boring process that it's ever been, at least on the Democratic side. I'd be very surprised if Hillary Clinton is not assured of the nomination before South Carolina.
The GOP dogfight is likely to be slightly less predictable, but unless Fred Thompson gets in the race, it seems almost assured that the nominee is gonna be either Romney, Giuliani, or McCain, based entirely on the muscle of their fundraising machines. My prediction a couple of months ago that dark horse former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee could mount an insurgency to fill the void of a "real conservative" in the race now seems naive. His fundraising is nowhere near where it needs to be to get anyone on MSNBC talking about him. Candidates like Huckabee, Brownback, and Biden on the Democratic side probably won't even end up making it to the Iowa caucus and may very well decide to nix their campaigns before Labor Day this year.
Actually, Labor Day may be optimistic. For more than a month now here in Iowa, we've been seeing Mitt Romney campaign ads on our local affiliates, 10 months before the primary. I'm expecting that Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Giuliani, and McCain will all be bombarding our airwaves by the Fourth of July, if not Memorial Day. The totality of this unseemly spectacle is the main reason why I'm so tuned out to politics (at least by my standards) right now. An already-broken nomination process has been made infinitely worse by the infantile maneuvering of states to bump up their primary dates, destroying the checks and balances of the existing primary map in the process. Big money wields more influence than ever before, raising the odds that we'll get stuck with lousy candidates who lack sufficient battle-testing 10 months before the actual election. I just hope the Washington insiders and the voting public recognizes just how absurd the process in which we elect a President has become so that changes can be made leading in 2008.....but I'm counting on it. When even a hard-core political junkie like me is disgusted by the current course of events, Bob from Ohio must really be sick of it.
What do these six candidates have in common? They all broke the previous fundraising record for the first quarter of the year preceding the election, which was previously held by Al Gore who had raised $9.8 million in the first quarter of 1999. That's how out of control things have gotten. Even the 2004 primaries seem quaint in comparison to the tireless bombardment we've been clobbered over the head with this year in regards to an election that's more than 19 months away.
Unfortunately, the overzealous cable news-fueled hype of Election 2008 is only a small part of the problem. A much bigger problem is the self-fulfilling prophesy of the "frontrunner" sucking the oxygen out of everybody else. A dark horse candidate like Jimmy Carter or even Howard Dean would face almost impossible odds in getting past the deep-pocketed candidate cartel, the media punditocracy, and now, the frontloaded primaries which guarantee that the field will be wittled down to two or three candidates from each party after the Iowa caucus. Take Bill Richardson and Mike Huckabee as examples. I'm not sure what kind of money Huckabee raised, but Bill Richardson pulled in a reasonably impressive $6 million this past quarter. Four years ago, that would have been considered a good haul and would position Richardson for a solid ad blitz in the early primary states.
Richardson will still likely be able to afford such a blitz in Iowa, Nevada, and New Hampshire if his fundraising continues to go this well, but the frontloaded slate of spoiler primaries in California and Illinois will still make it impossible for a candidate like Richardson to effectively proceed even if he's hot off of Iowa, Nevada, and New Hampshire victories. There is no way money can flow in fast enough between mid-January and early February to allow Richardson to afford the media exposure necessary to make him a factor in California and Illinois. For all the blusterous hype about NEXT YEAR's primaries, the nomination process is almost assured to be the shortest and most boring process that it's ever been, at least on the Democratic side. I'd be very surprised if Hillary Clinton is not assured of the nomination before South Carolina.
The GOP dogfight is likely to be slightly less predictable, but unless Fred Thompson gets in the race, it seems almost assured that the nominee is gonna be either Romney, Giuliani, or McCain, based entirely on the muscle of their fundraising machines. My prediction a couple of months ago that dark horse former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee could mount an insurgency to fill the void of a "real conservative" in the race now seems naive. His fundraising is nowhere near where it needs to be to get anyone on MSNBC talking about him. Candidates like Huckabee, Brownback, and Biden on the Democratic side probably won't even end up making it to the Iowa caucus and may very well decide to nix their campaigns before Labor Day this year.
Actually, Labor Day may be optimistic. For more than a month now here in Iowa, we've been seeing Mitt Romney campaign ads on our local affiliates, 10 months before the primary. I'm expecting that Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Giuliani, and McCain will all be bombarding our airwaves by the Fourth of July, if not Memorial Day. The totality of this unseemly spectacle is the main reason why I'm so tuned out to politics (at least by my standards) right now. An already-broken nomination process has been made infinitely worse by the infantile maneuvering of states to bump up their primary dates, destroying the checks and balances of the existing primary map in the process. Big money wields more influence than ever before, raising the odds that we'll get stuck with lousy candidates who lack sufficient battle-testing 10 months before the actual election. I just hope the Washington insiders and the voting public recognizes just how absurd the process in which we elect a President has become so that changes can be made leading in 2008.....but I'm counting on it. When even a hard-core political junkie like me is disgusted by the current course of events, Bob from Ohio must really be sick of it.
posted by Mark at 7:16 PM
1 Comments:
They've been seeing a lot of bombardment in Missouri too. James told me that Obama is almost always on the front page of the St. Louis paper and Romney had been running quite a few ads and I think was endorsed by Governor Blunt.
I chipped in a few bucks to Richardson's campaign. I hope he can break into the top tier before long.
Post a Comment
<< Home