We had three Democratic presidential candidates appearing in Los Angeles on Friday at the US Conference of Mayors of convention. More candidates will be here this week. But it’s really all about money now.
This week, things are pretty clearcut. We are in the final stretch of the second quarter of 2007 fundraising and the candidates in both major parties are vying for position. And as a result, focusing their efforts on the money game.
Their public campaigning is essentially an ancillary activity, designed to show that they are doing more than fundraising.
But not all that much more.
The Democrats are heartened by the collapse of the Bush presidency in the polls — now close to the historic lows achieved by Richard Nixon in the height of the Watergate scandal over three decades ago. Add to that, the record numbers who say that America is on the wrong track with the – at best – slow developing surge strategy in Iraq, and it is little surprise that they are, by all accounts, raising substantially more money than their Republican counterparts.
The outstanding question is this: Will the tyro freshman senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, once again raise more money for the primaries than the longstanding Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton? Most of my sources, in both camps, say that he will.
The competitive action between the two leading Democratic candidates, leaves the third member of the Democratic first tier, 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards, lowballing his numbers.
Cyberpolitics guru Joe Trippi, who masterminded Howard Dean’s short-lived front-runnership for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination in the pre-scream days, sent an e-mail to supporters late last week saying the Edwards campaign is right on track. Raising substantially less money than it did in the first quarter of 2007, when Edwards was already overwhelmed by the strength of Clinton and Obama is on track? Okay.
Meanwhile, keep an eye on leading second tier contender Democratic Bill Richardson, the New Mexico governor and former UN ambassador who has moved into fourth place in the early states, who says he may raise more money than Edwards.
Most of the Republicans will also be scuffling for cash over the next week. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is expected to lead the way financially yet again, with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani pulling in second – a reversal of their standing in national polls. John McCain is in, as his advisors might put it, in survival mode.
Having come back from the seeming dead just two months ago after a disappointing start, the Arizona senator and Vietnam War hero is once more in big trouble, due to his co-authorship of the comprehensive immigration bill.
That bill, which may be revived in the Senate this week after its seeming demise earlier this month, is smothering McCain’s candidacy. While it has received, at best, mixed tidings among national polls of all voters, it is extremely unpopular among Republican primary voters. The sooner it is resolved, one way or the other, the better for McCain, who must again revive his candidacy with his fundraising again trailing that of Romney and Giuliani.
Of course, the real action on the Republican side is around Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator-turned-TV star who is exciting many disaffected conservatives. Democrats are much happier with their candidates than are Republicans (notwithstanding the fact that their two frontrunners are a second-term senator best known as a controversial first lady and a first-term senator who was a state legislator just over two years ago.)
Thompson journeyed to Britain last week to polish up his foreign policy gravitas and found mixed tidings. His hawkish policy speech on Monday, in which he seemed to call for regime change in Iran with a US blockade to force the way, was balanced by an interview later in the week with the Times of London in which he said that a new “realism” will be in store for America after the Bush years. While he did meet with former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, still a major icon for conservatives around the world, it was not a dramatic occasion. But the void in enthusiasm on the Republican side continues nonetheless, and Thompson does have the chops to take advantage of it, at least for a while.
This week, he is back in the USA and will continue his undeclared candidacy with trips to his home state Tennessee, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Some say he will make an announcement in Tennessee this week. While I’m sure he’ll announce something there, it won’t be his candidacy, which now seems slated for July. New Hampshire is a state where Thompson needs to do some serious work. South Carolina, on the other hand, is a state where he has taken the lead in the new Mason-Dixon poll. And he has just pulled ahead in Nevada, as well.
Nevada and South Carolina are two of the first four states in the nomination process, the other two being Iowa and New Hampshire. Thompson is in the hunt in Iowa, where Romney leads after spending megabucks on TV advertising (no other Republican is doing that) and trails in New Hampshire (where the former governor of next door Massachusetts also leads, also after spending megabucks on TV advertising).
Also on tap this week in presidential politics is the handover of the British prime ministership from staunch US ally Tony Blair to Gordon Brown, the current chancellor of the exchequer. That’s finance minister to us.
How this plays out will have a major impact on US foreign policy, as Britain has been America’s only consistent ally in the military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the overall war on terror.
Intriguingly, the only American official on hand in London prior to the hand-off and meeting at the Elysee Palace today with new French President Nicolas Sarkozy California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger — the highest-profile American politician who is not running for president.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum.
Read 
| Comments (0) |
Thompson is like the Republicans forth frontrunner. They all look pretty old except Romney.
How does Thompson play in the money chase? Doesn’t he get a bye because he’s still “exploring?”
I heard that Obama may raise $40 million in the quarter. Can that be right?
Budget? What budget? There can’t be a state budget impasse because the Governor is on a European vacation and the news media is not reporting any conflict. Pay no attention to the deadlines, they are merely for simpletons and partisans.
Perception defines reality.
Is your party’s director going to be deported? lol
Good riddance to the illegal alien. His buddy State Party Chair Nehring should resign too. It would save us the “What did he know and when did he know it?” drama. Buffoons all.
Yes, he does.
>Ann :
How does Thompson play in the money chase? Doesn’t he get a bye because he’s still “exploring?”
Jun 25, 2007 06:50 AM
There are a lot of numbers floating around. That sounds high.
>Ann :
I heard that Obama may raise $40 million in the quarter. Can that be right?
Jun 25, 2007 06:52 AM
If you want me to report on a conflict, maybe there should be a conflict to report on.
>Kandy Kid :
Budget? What budget? There can’t be a state budget impasse because the Governor is on a European vacation and the news media is not reporting any conflict. Pay no attention to the deadlines, they are merely for simpletons and partisans.
Perception defines reality.
Jun 25, 2007 07:10 AM
How likely is that?
>Kandy Kid :
Good riddance to the illegal alien. His buddy State Party Chair Nehring should resign too. It would save us the “What did he know and when did he know it?” drama. Buffoons all.
Jun 25, 2007 07:35 AM
Damn librels are responsible for this fiasco somehow.
Kamburowski’s not an “illegal alien.” How the Republicans turn on their own leaders. Tsk, tsk.
I wonder if the Clinton campaign is poormouthing its fundraising prospects.
The saddest (yet truest) statement I’ve read in ages…
“Their public campaigning is essentially an ancillary activity, designed to show that they are doing more than fundraising.”
Think this will get better or worse after the Supremes further weakening McCain/Feingold today?
I’m not optimistic…
Does that mean Hillary does too, since – technically speaking – she’s “still exploring” too?
I haven’t looked at the WRtL decision, but I think it only effects independent “issue” ads. Candidates lip-service to the non-donor public likely won’t change.
Tommy Boy, I’m not sure Hillary is going to bother announcing. Thompson still has a testing the waters committee.
I think what he said is right, the Supreme Court decision is about “issue” advertising.
The candidates will be doing plenty of campaigning. But this week is about money, with the Q2 deadline approaching.
Everyone else announces a half-dozen times…why should Hillary be any different.
In the meantime, I’ll be watching the FEC website for when she creates a “real” rather than exploratory committee…until then, I give her a slim chance of changing her mind.
Clinton FEC Data
I haven’t looked at the decision, but if I recall the case had to do with groups putting up issue ads within a certain window of election day.
McCain Feingold prohibited ads mentioning federal candidates within X number of days of any election in which they participated. With soft money banned from the National Party Committees, this provision (I guess) was aimed to stop that money from flowing to third party groups, trying to bring down candidates under the guise of issue advocacy.
Wisconsin Right to Life brought the case.
For all the goods on this story, I’d reccomend Loyola law professor Rick Hassen’s Election Law Blog.
I think Hillary is just running. Unless you have some reason to think otherwise.
Hillary? Running? Really? lol
If she’s not running, a lot of people are going to ask for refunds.
They may ask for refunds anyway.
Hillary is doing extremely well. No one wants a refund.
I don’t see the refunds happening.
I’m less concerned about people wanting a refund than wanting a return on their investment.
Big story in Fortune Magazine about Hillary and business.
There’s your ROI.
That Fortune article just shows that Ralph Nader was right!
They’re all sell-outs. Abandon ship!
All in the world.
That’s the way politics is.
Cynicism.
Where would we be without cynicism?
The Republicans have no frontrunner. Mrs. Clinton must run all the way from the front. That’s a terrible burden for a candidate so disliked.
It’s hard to run all the way from the front.
Well, Clinton/biz connections aren’t anything new… The fact that CEOs are, en masse, abandoning the GOP, is interesting, though. But not all that surprising; they don’t want their children to live in an apocalyptic nightmare world any more than the rest of us. (And that’s leaving aside the possibility that spiraling economic inequality, combined with displacement of millions of refugees from places like Miami and the Chesapeake basin by rising seas, could result, within our lifetime, in the collapse of our entire economy and political system.)
At some point, an executive looks at the situation, says, “I’d like to do the right thing, but if I do somebody will be able to undercut me, so please, Leviathan, make it so that all my competitors have to do the right thing too.” I have a friend who works for a private water company that’s absolutely furious with the Bush EPA for not having stricter regs on arsenic and perchlorate.
Oh, you know there’s no such thing as the greenhouse effect.
Oh, hey, here’s a British Air Marshall making the same point I was…
There you go!
Well, part of what you were saying ..