When candidates open their checkbooks

October 16, 2007

There’s some trepidation in scrutinizing candidate’s campaign coffers too closely. Measuring presidential hopefuls by their fundraising totals and cash-on-hand seems like the ultimate in political inside pool. The typical American doesn’t know or care how much money a campaign raises or spends.

But the numbers matter anyway. First, the coffers are pored over by reporters and major donors, and, fair or not, candidates who fall behind are perceived as less credible. Second, and more importantly, candidates actually need lots of money to win. Commercials, staffers, travel, and the like are expensive — if a candidate can’t fill the coffers, he or she will struggle to compete.

We’ve had a sense for a couple of weeks how the candidates did in raising money in the third quarter (July to September), but those numbers are only part of the story. In Q3, candidates started spending money in earnest, and with a 90-day sprint underway before primary/caucus voters actually head to the polls, what matters more than fundraising tallies is how much money the candidates have left in the bank.

It’s what makes these numbers noteworthy.

Clinton topped the Democratic field, reporting $35 million available to spend on the primaries, edging out Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), who had roughly $32 million in reserve for the battle for the nomination, the campaigns reported. Both Democrats continued to enjoy a huge advantage over their Republican counterparts. Giuliani ended September with $16 million in his campaign account, while his closest competitor, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, had $9 million in available cash.

Obama, Giuliani and Romney all spent more than they raised in the past three months, with Romney spending $21 million — more than twice what his campaign brought in.

Some of this makes sense; some of it doesn’t.

In terms of donors outside his house, Romney raised almost $10 million in Q3, but spent $21 million. That’s quite a burn-rate, though it makes some sense, given that Romney’s name recognition outside Massachusetts and Utah is practically non-existent. The only way to boost name ID is to hit the airwaves aggressively, which Romney has apparently done.

Rudy Giuliani’s numbers are perhaps the most striking of all. The former mayor raised $11 million, and spent $13 million. That’s not too big a deal, but there’s a catch — Giuliani spent $13 million without buying a single television ad, which is always the biggest expense of any candidate. What on earth is this guy spending all of that money on?

Giuliani’s spending was elevated at least in part because he traveled in style. He often stayed in luxury hotels, spending $2,010 at the Greenbrier in West Virginia, $4,034 at La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Calif., and $5,370 at the Fairmont in San Francisco. He also spent more than $565,000 reimbursing various corporate supporters for private jet travel and an additional $800,000 on charter jet travel.

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest this might undermine Giuliani’s pitch as being a man of the people.

Also noteworthy among Republicans, Fred Thompson has $7.1 million left for the primaries, while John McCain has $1.67 million, but is actually in the red when one factors in campaign debts and general-election funds. Mike Huckabee has about $650,000 in the bank, while Sam Brownback is barely treading water with $95,000 on hand.

As for Dems, I just thought I’d note that Clinton and Obama’s numbers really are a sight to behold.

Together and separately, however, Clinton and Obama are crushing both their intra-party rivals and the Republicans. Overall, Clinton’s campaign has collected nearly $91 million, including a $10 million transfer from her Senate committee in January. That sum bests President Bush’s 2003 record-breaking third-quarter tally of $85 million.

Obama, a first-term senator, nearly matched Bush’s record, raising a total of $80 million thus far for his upstart campaign.

Overall, the Democratic primary candidates have raised more than $243 million compared to about $152 million raised by the Republican candidates.

Clinton has $35 million left for the primaries, Obama has $32 million, Edwards is third with $12.4 million, followed by Richardson with about $6 million.

Stay tuned.

What is Giulianni’s game here? $13 million on travel expenses? Is this whole presidential run just a charade to get some free trips around the US at his campaign donor’s expense? Is that why he doesn’t seem to be taking it seriously (with his 9/11 tourets and his calls from his wife)? Or is he just so confident that he can win without trying that he’s blowing his money elsewhere?

And I wish I were as impressed by Obama’s campaigning skills and policy platforms as I am by his fundraising abilities. To be able to almost match Clinton’s fundraising capabilties – when she has almost 15 years of national exposure at the federal level on him, plus the well-known name and the fundraising power of her husband – that’s really impressive. I’m not surprised that Clinton might outperform Bush (who mainly had name recognition and connections through Daddy to get his money from – Clinton also has her own record and connections at the federal level from her years in the Senate), but I am surprised that Obama got that close.

  • You forgot that Ron Paul has $5M+ in the bank, CB, but I’m sure that you didn’t omit that intentionally.

  • I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest this might undermine Giuliani’s pitch as being a man of the people.

    It might, if voters were ever to find out. No danger of that, though, is there?

  • Actually, JKap, it isn’t CB that left off The Libertarian Messiah Saviour Ron Paul from the list – you might notice that he doesn’t appear to be listed in the Washington Post article at all.

    I suggest rounding up a posse of Ron Paul supporters to go scale the battlements and launch an all-out e-mail assault on the Washington Post for not providing this information.

  • No, he’s summarizing the WaPo story in the first part of this article. Which you could tell if you followed the link and read the story. Since the WaPo story doesn’t list the numbers for TLMS Ron Paul among the GOP candidates, it didn’t end up in the summary. Simple explanation – no conspiracy theory needed.

    Again – storm the battlefronts of the WaPo to get your message out. More folks are going to be reading the WaPo articles than are going to be reading Steve’s blog (no offense Steve), so if you want everyone to know about the successful fundraising of TLMS Ron Paul, the WaPo is the place to go make your anger known.

  • I’m sure that your advice is in earnest, NonyNony, but I’ll continue to act on my own prerogative.

    I would suggest that you do the same.

  • I think mostly fund raising numbers matter to the general public in that an awful lot of people base their voting decisions on information gained mostly from political advertising. Somewhere I read after an analysis after the last presidential election that at the peak of the campaign, the average network evening news cast had something like 4-5 minutes of political and campaign-related news and more like 12 minutes of political ads. And of course the ads didn’t stop when the news did, but continued when people turned their attention from news back to soap operas, sit-coms, and sporting events.

    Not many Americans really go very far out of their way to inform themselves about political issues and current events, so candidates have to bring the mountain to Mohamed as best they can. So to the extent that campaign cash enables candidates to buy the high-priced talent to (hopefully) produce effective advertising and then place their ads in the expensive markets and during premium time slots, that directly effects the public at large and their political decision-making. It sucks, but that’s how it is.

  • “My” own prerogitive on Mr. Paul, JKap, is that he’s a two-faced twit. If you go beyond the “END-THE-WAR” tirade that he’s peddling, you have someone who hides behind the “Strict Constitutionalist” shield to block any digression from a literal interpretation—but he’s willing to come out and change that same “sacrosanct” Constitution to allow prayer in public schools.

    If you say that something cannot ever be changed in one sentence, and then declare that it can always be changed in the next—then you are a two-faced twit.

    Thus, Ron Paul is a two-faced twit.

  • Rudy didn’t spend $13M on travel expenses and whoever thinks that is lying.

    Someone forgot to mention how much Romney has contributed of his own money versus other candidates — was it $17M? Talk about the media — would say this blog has its own problems when it comes to credibility

  • It amazes me that Obama has done nearly as well raising money as Clinton but is still so far behind in most, if not all polls.

    Is this implying there some sort of widespread polling error? Are some Obama supporters inherently different from Clinton supporters in a way that affects the polls?

  • Doubtful, I’m a Gore fan, parading as an Edwards fan for the sake of this election. And yes, it is very odd that Obama has not translated his fund-raising prowress to be closer to Hillary in the polls. This early out, yes polling is more about name recognition. Hillary has hit many big fund-raisers hard and they’re all maxed out, many for the general as well as the primary. Obama has been rather brilliant in bringing in much smaller donors and many more younger people. And that translates in to many more people, who are not tapped out for the primaries or the general election. Since his monies are on par with hers, and he’s had to raise it from many more people it’s odd that his polling numbers don’t have more parity. And beleive me, I’d much rather he win the nomination than Hillary.

    Anyway, that’s what I took CB’s comment about being amazed to mean.

  • And believe me, I’d much rather he win the nomination than Hillary.

    I’m sadly convinced that Obama would never be elected President. Not even in this cycle with so much anti-Republican feeling, and with the clown cast they have competing for their nomination.

    I think we are still a much more racist society (beneath the thin veneer of political correctness) than we are willing to acknowledge.

    And this may never show up in polls, where people are reluctant to admit their prejudices. But I’m convinced it would show up in the voting.

    I think there are way too many people who would just never vote for a black candidate.

  • I am sure you left out Ron Paul on purpose, but he actually is the only Republican candidate to received more money in each of the quarters and was up 188% while all others dropped like a rock.

    In addition, Ron Paul doesn’t have drunken spending parties like the other candidates and has no debt and 5 million plus in the bank, second only to Guiliani when you consider Mitt Romney has debts that are more than his campaign brought in.

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