John Kerry’s campaign, during the Dem primaries, followed Howard Dean’s lead and left the public financing system. It was a gamble that paid off beautifully — Kerry’s campaign is already the strongest Dem campaign in U.S. history in terms of fundraising. Even more importantly, had Kerry stayed in the system, he’d be trailing Bush’s fundraising by at least $150 million. Instead, Kerry is making Bush sweat.
But later this month, Kerry will effectively stop raising money and accept $75 million in public financing that is supposed to last him between the end of the Dem convention and Election Day. Or, then again, maybe he won’t.
Some Democratic strategists and fundraisers say Sen. John Kerry should seriously consider opting out of public funding in his bid to defeat President Bush this fall.
They maintain that Kerry’s record fundraising efforts in the Democratic presidential primary show that the senator can reap more money through private contributions than through what the government would provide the campaign.
Until now, it has been assumed that both Kerry and Bush would take the $75 million in public funds after they accept their respective nominations. But this places Kerry, who will be nominated five weeks prior to President Bush, at a significant disadvantage. He has to stretch his money for 14 weeks, an average of about $5 million per week, compared to Bush, who has nine weeks, an average of more than $8 million, to spend his public money.
This — and Kerry’s aggressive fundraising operation — is leading some of his most prolific fundraisers and Democratic strategists to suggest that Kerry should take the historic step of forgoing public funds and keep raising money all the way to the Nov. 2 election.
That’s certainly one way to work around the inherent disadvantage placed on the challenger.
One concern is whether this would be financially advantageous. In other words, could Kerry get more than $75 million in contributions in the three final full months of the race (August, September, October)? Recent history suggests he can.
Since effectively clinching the Democratic nomination, Kerry has raised more than $30 million per month and a total of more than $180 million. That would easily put him on pace to raise more than $75 million until the election, especially because those Democratic donors who have given the maximum of $2,000 for his primary could contribute the same amount again. He has also raised an average of more than $10 million a month online, meaning it will take less administrative effort to bring
in these donations.
Another concern is whether it’d be a political problem.
Tony Coelho, former campaign chairman for Vice President Al Gore, said that there are “legitimate reasons” not to take public funds and that Kerry would eclipse $75 million if he continued raising funds, but added that there could be a “big negative” politically as “pro-[Ralph] Nader people would seize on it.”
Nader has said that the two major parties are too similar and beholden to corporate interests. Opting out and taking millions of additional campaign contributions, even if a lot of the money would come from small online donors, could fuel those type of attacks.
Perhaps, but those attacks are going to come anyway. If Kerry stays in the system, Nader will complain about the money Kerry raised before the DNC. If Kerry opts out, Nader will complain about the donations after the DNC. Either way, Nader complains, so it shouldn’t necessarily dictate the campaign’s decisions.
But the reason I’m not sold on this approach has everything to do with what BC04 will do. If Kerry opts out, Bush will opt out — and Bush has access to more money that we do. This alone should give the Kerry campaign reason to shudder.