When it came to Third Quarter fundraising among presidential candidates, there were three questions on most political observers’ minds: would Bush top $50 million for the quarter, would Dean raise more than any Democrat ever has in a single quarter, and would Wesley Clark demonstrate an ability to raise a significant amount right away.
The answer to all three turned out to be, “Yes.”
Bush is a fundraising machine (or as my friend Morbo would say, mo-chine). No politician has ever had his fundraising abilities. It’s just never happened. Not only did he raise over $50 million in Q3, he raised more in one day in September ($5 million) than most of the Democrats did in three months. His total for the last six months is about $83 million. Unreal.
It’s just scary how much money the guy can generate. If Bush showed as much interest in bringing money into the federal treasury as he did in bringing money into his campaign coffers, we wouldn’t have the largest budget deficit in the history of the world.
Dean ended Q3 with about $15 million, almost $5 million more than any Democratic presidential candidate has ever raised in a single quarter (the old record was Clinton’s $10 million quarter in ’96, but he was an incumbent president at the time). Oddly enough, I’ve heard some liberal grumbling that Dean is becoming too good at fundraising and that his campaign is now more about cash on hand than people power. Ah, the travails of being the frontrunner…
Clark, meanwhile, only had two weeks as a candidate at the very end of the quarter. Rumors circulated last week that the campaign would pull in between $2 million and $2.5 million. On Monday, however, the campaign released the final totals: $3.5 million.
That may only be about a fourth of Dean’s total, but Dean raised $15 million in three months, Clark raised $3.5 million in two weeks. In other words, Clark’s per week average in Q3 was just as good as Dean’s.
Also, Clark’s total for the quarter was better in two weeks than several established candidates raised in three months, including Sharpton, Braun, Kucinich, and Graham.
There were other encouraging signs for Clark. First, his campaign borrowed a page from the Dean playbook and raised about two-thirds of its total for the quarter from the Internet. Second, the fundraising totals did not come from a handful of fat-cats; Clark received donations from 21,000 people, with the average contribution at about $167. That’s an excellent base of financial support.
Unlike in previous quarters, nearly all of the other candidates have been tight-lipped about their Q3 totals. It’s probably because everyone knew in advance how good Dean’s numbers were going to be. (Note to campaigns: if you’ve got a really bad Q3 total, release it today while most of the political reporters are covering the California recall race. Just a helpful hint from Uncle Carpetbagger.)
I’d love to tell you how the other candidates did, but they haven’t said yet. The filings go public on Oct. 15; if they haven’t already announced by then, I’ll let you know what happened.