Bob Graham’s presidential campaign couldn’t be going much worse. He’s in the low-single digits in national polls, other candidates are having better luck campaigning in Florida than he is, he was the only candidate to register 0% in a statewide poll this week in Wisconsin, he came in dead last in a statewide poll released yesterday in New York, he registered a whopping 1% in a recent South Carolina poll, he’s at 1% in Iowa, and he’s tied for dead last in New Hampshire.
And now Graham’s fundraising problems may just push him over the edge.
To be sure, money has been a problem for Graham all along. He had a terrible Q1, but was forgiven because he entered the race in March. Things didn’t look much better in Q2, with about a $3 million tally. Don’t worry, the campaign said, Q3 will be much better.
Several recent reports suggest Graham expects to collect between $4 million and $5 million by the end of this quarter, which ends next week. Even if Graham did get $5 mil, the perception would be that a serious candidate who has been in the race as long as he has should demonstrate a better fundraising prowess.
Complicating matters, three officials with close ties to the Graham campaign admitted to the AP yesterday that Graham may not even get to $4 million.
Even worse, the AP report noted that Graham’s fundraising coordinators for California and New York — only the nation’s biggest states — quit the campaign last week. One of them has signed on to raise money for Wesley Clark.
Of course, the Graham team wants everyone to believe everything’s fine. Campaign manager Paul Johnson told the AP that the California and New York fundraisers have been replaced and that the campaign is still “full speed ahead.”
I can appreciate Johnson’s attempt to put a positive spin on bad news, but I can’t help but wonder how long Graham can wait until dropping out. As I mentioned two weeks ago, Graham can still head back to Florida and fight (probably successfully) for his Senate seat.
Sorry, Bob. This just isn’t going to work out.