Burn rate is high and not much to see for it... plus a huge bloated payroll. They are spending tons of cash on organization, which in any other election I might fear, but then I remember how these guys operate. I disagreed with Kerry's decision not to counter heavily when Bush went into his big ad buy, but now it looks like brilliance... can you say "implosion?" After the convention, both are on equal footing, though Bush (or will it be McCain?) will sort of have more because his convention's later. __________________ Bush’s disappearing financial advantage Did the president’s campaign spend too much money too fast?By David Shuster MSNBC Correspondent Updated: 7:09 p.m. ET April 15, 2004 In politics, it is known as the burn rate — the speed at which a campaign spends the money it has raised. The Hardball ad watch team estimates that the Bush campaign has already spent nearly half of its pre-convention advertising budget. With the polls showing the president even or slightly behind John Kerry, it means that the Bush campaign's huge financial advantage has now all but disappeared. Since early March, the Bush campaign has been advertising at a rate of $9 million a week. But the campaign is now cutting that in half after seeing the president's election message pushed aside by the attention around 9/11, and by the daily attacks on American troops in Iraq. "The bad news is overwhelming them right now, and I think they've got a predicament," says former Dean campaign manager and MSNBC analyst Joe Trippi. The predicament gets worse when you look at where the Bush campaign started financially and where things stand today: The president raised a record $180 million, and half of that was budgeted for campaign operations, the other half for pre-convention advertising. But of the advertising budget, $90 million, the Bush campaign has already spent at least $40 million. By comparison, John Kerry has spent about $10 million. The huge imbalance only seems to have affected views about Kerry and taxes. Most voters think Kerry will raise taxes, but in the 18 states where the president has been attacking him, independent Democratic groups have been counterpunching with ads of their own ... and Kerry's favorability ratings remain steady. Furthermore, a majority of battleground voters continue to say the president is taking the country in the wrong direction. Knockout strategies have been tried before. Former President Bush hammered Michael Dukakis during a lull in 1988, and Bill Clinton attacked Bob Dole early in 1996. But even prominent Republicans believe the Bush 2004 knockout attempt of Kerry hasn't worked. Making matters worse for the White House, the president's advertising is now ratcheting down at the very time John Kerry's is ratcheting up. Kerry's campaign plans to double its spending on TV ads starting next week. What all this may mean is that the election may be entering a new phase. For the first time in this campaign, both the president and his challenger will be running TV ads at about the same clip. And given that polls show the race is still even, it is the kind of advertising parity Democrats have been dreaming of
I think Kerry can hold on to his money for now, and continue to let world events and Bush's handling of Iraq, gas prices, the economy etc. do the damage for him. Then later Kerry can point out what's wrong, and why his policies will help make it better, and take the offensive.
Good news, all. No matter which party has the disproportionately bigger war chest, I find it disconcerting that in a democracy one major political party could have such a distinct advantage over another. Barring election law reform, having a relatively level financial playing field seems the next best thing. I don't understand this aside, though I do wish McCain could make a Robert Kennedy-type entry into the race. Bush ran amongst the Republicans virtually unopposed; he has more than enough delegates to secure the nomination. I know some conscientious Republicans might want to switch horses mid-bloody stream, but I thought the days of backroom convention politicking were pretty much over. Most state party chapters require delegates' votes to reflect their electorates', do they not? Or are you speaking of successful impeachment(s)? If so, wouldn't that extremist LaRouche have the second-most delegates? How exactly would that work? I rent an apartment. How much do plumbers cost these days?
I can envision a few scenarios, the most likely (though still highly unlikely) a floor revolt at the convention... admittedly a very un-Republican thing to do, but I sense a growing discontent among the country club side of the GOP.
Too early to start celebrating. Don't count the Bu****es out. They have proven that they can deliver an incredible rate of return for bucks invested in them. In addition there are quite a number of folks like Ken Lay who can still hope to avoid prison sentences if Bush can squeak through. If I were rich, with no moral values, I would still Bush as a good investment given the possiblility of spectacular returns. Wouldn't surpirse me if Bush can come up with another 100 million for a final push.
They are without shame... Student letter warns against Cheney 'diatribe' Veep criticized for earlier speech Thursday, April 29, 2004 Posted: 7:43 PM EDT (2343 GMT) Vice President Dick Cheney's speech Monday at a Missouri college was criticized by the school's president. (CNN) -- A group of students at Florida State University is demanding that FSU's president ask Vice President Dick Cheney not to attack Sen. John Kerry or make a "political diatribe" Saturday when delivers the school's commencement address. The demand comes after Cheney used a speech Monday at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri to sharply criticize the presumptive Democratic nominee's record, including votes against funding various weapons programs during his two decades in the Senate. In a letter to FSU President Thomas Wetherell, the students characterized Cheney's speech in Missouri as "a nasty, personal attack" which "had no place in an official university setting." The effort was organized by Tom Barcus, a member of FSU's College Democrats, and signed by about 130 people. The school is in Tallahassee, Florida. "We strongly urge you to seek assurances that his speech will not be another political diatribe aimed only at scoring points in the presidential campaign," the students wrote. "The graduation ceremony should be the culmination of students' time at the university and a chance to celebrate accomplishments with friends and family." "It would be unfortunate if that day were besmirched by personal attacks -- either direct or indirect -- against candidates for public office." Responding to the letter at Wetherell's request, Mary Coburn, the university's vice president for student affairs, assured the students in an e-mail that Cheney's speech to graduates on Saturday will not be political. "From the beginning of our discussions with the vice president's office, we have been repeatedly assured that this will not be a political speech," Coburn said. "We have also reviewed other graduation speeches that he has given, and they have not been political." Unlike the speech at Westminster, where Cheney was invited to discuss foreign policy, "politics is not the purpose of the FSU speech," she said. After Cheney's speech in Missouri, the president of Westminster College, Fletcher Lamkin, sent an e-mail to students, faculty and staff saying he "was surprised and disappointed" that Cheney had resorted to "Kerry-bashing" in his address. The Kerry campaign then distributed Lamkin's critical e-mail in a press release. "We had only been told the speech would be about foreign policy," wrote Lamkin, who invited Kerry to come to the college to issue a rebuttal. Kerry is due to speak at Westminster on Friday. In their letter to Wetherell, the FSU students asked him to "publicly ask the vice president to disavow such attacks before Saturday" because, "as we have seen, private assurances from the vice president's office are not a reliable guarantee." The White House has defended Cheney's speech, insisting that his critique of Kerry's record on national security was not a personal attack, but rather an accurate analysis of the positions he has taken through the years as a senator. http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/29/students.cheney/index.html
Kerry surges ahead of Bush in fundraising... In April, Kerry's Fundraising Nearly Doubled Bush's President Has Spent $130 Million on Race By Paul Farhi Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, May 21, 2004; Page A02 Sen. John F. Kerry's fundraising receipts surged strongly ahead of President Bush's last month, with the presumptive Democratic nominee pulling in almost twice what the president raised. At the same time, Bush's campaign is spending money at an unprecedented rate. In part because of a $50 million ad blitz in March and early April, Bush has spent nearly $130 million on his reelection effort, a record amount, according to reports that the campaign filed yesterday with the Federal Election Commission. In April alone, his campaign spent almost $31 million to help counteract a series of negative news reports that have hurt the president's standing in the polls. Kerry's fundraising haul of $30 million in April -- compared with the Bush campaign's $15.6 million -- marked the second consecutive month in which the Massachusetts senator's receipts have exceeded the president's, according to the two campaigns. Over the past two months, Kerry has attracted about $30 million more than Bush. The president did much of his fundraising last year and has stopped attending events to raise more for his campaign. Bush still has a big advantage over Kerry in cash on hand -- about $71.6 million at the end of April, compared with Kerry's $28 million. But several independent observers say two factors could work in Kerry's favor: the accelerated pace of his fundraising and a likely decline in spending by the president over the next few months. Kerry's success in attracting donations has, in any case, obliterated the conventional wisdom of just a few months ago that the president would use his enormous financial strength to clobber his opponent with advertising, as President Bill Clinton did in 1996 against Robert J. Dole and as Bush did in 2000 against a cash-strapped Al Gore. "Kerry is now in a position to be competitive with [the president] through the convention," when both candidates will be limited to $75 million in federal campaign funds, said Anthony Corrado, a campaign finance expert at the Brookings Institution. "The issue was, could Kerry raise the money he needed to get his message out and campaign aggressively through the summer? He's done that. This is a completely different race from the last two because of his fundraising success." In all, Kerry raised $115 million through April 30, breaking Bush's record for a challenger, his campaign said. The Bush campaign said yesterday that it has raised $200 million since last year, drawing contributions from slightly more than 1 million donors, the first time a campaign has achieved such a milestone. The two candidates have more than doubled the money Bush and Gore raised before their conventions. In addition to mounting a competitive advertising campaign, Kerry appears to have the resources to begin building a campaign staff in the 17 or so "battleground" states that both campaigns consider crucial to their election strategy. This may prove to be another significant difference for Kerry over Gore, who was forced to borrow $2 million against his federal election grant to assemble a small staff in several states in midsummer of 2000. Bush's April fundraising total of $15.6 million was impressive by almost any measure except his haul of $26 million in March. The April total came from 183,400 supporters, compared with nearly 200,000 who gave in March. Corrado said Bush continues to show impressive financial strength, but the administration's problems in Iraq and economic issues may have reduced some of the enthusiasm in his donor base. Apart from spending $21 million on ads in April, Bush has assembled an expensive campaign apparatus, with relatively high overhead costs. Among other expenditures last month, the campaign spent $1.16 million on salaries, $3.6 million on postage and printing, and millions more on such miscellaneous items as parking ($4,178). "If he keeps this up, he won't last until September 1," when he'll receive his federal funds for the general election, said Michael Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute in Washington. "Obviously, he won't keep this up." But Bush is unlikely to run out of money before the Republican convention at the end of August. His campaign could maintain its current spending pace over the next four months simply by using its cash on hand and by raising an average of about $12.5 million a month -- a level well below its monthly average this year. What's more, its spending is likely to tail off, at least briefly, during the Democratic convention in July and the Olympics in August. Bush has received about one-quarter of his donations from four states -- his home state of Texas, followed by California, Florida and New York, according to an analysis by the Associated Press.
Why would Kerry need to pay for ads? He gets free Bush bash coverage every night on the news. The more Kerry stays out of the public eye the better his chances are.
It was smart...Kerry and his people realize how short the news cycle is these days and didn't want to peak early and overexpose a la Dean.
LOL When the media is reporting good Bush news, it's the truth. When it reports bad Bush news, it's bashing.
Kos breaks it down some more... Bush's money has to keep flowing and the more that flows to him, the less there is available for Congressional races... _______________ Doing the math, Bush has burned through $128 million, and what does he have to show for it? He's fallen behind Kerry in every single poll released the last week. More math -- according to OpenSecrets.org, Bush had raised a total $185 and had nearly $109 million cash on hand at the end of March. At the end of April, it was $200 million total raised, and $72 million cash. Check my math, but it looks like Bush spent $52 million in the month of April alone. $72 million is about five weeks expenses at the April burn rate. So, his incredible burn rate has forced Bush to keep fundraising for himself. Originally, the Bush campaign planned on raising $170 million. Then it was $180 million. Now they are at $200 million and counting. Bush won't let Kerry have financial parity. Distorting Kerry's record costs money. But here's the fun part -- The GOP counted on having Bush fundraise for the party committees and individual candidates down the ticket. Instead, that money is being shovelled into the Bush vortex. The more Bush has to hoard for himself, the less money he can raise for our congressional foes. Update: Kerry's numbers are out. Our guy raised $30 million to Bush's $15 million. And the article notes that Bush will have to raise $12.5 million a month through August to maintain his current burn rate (adding in his cash on hand). That's money that won't make their way into competitive House and Senate races. Nice. Also, there's much handwringing over the convention schedule and disbursements of federal funds for the general campaign. The Democratic convention is five weeks prior to the GOP effort. Thus, it seems, Bush has an advantage -- he gets to continue "primary campaign" fundraising while Kerry is locked in to the federal funding system. And Bush gets to spend his $75 million in five less weeks. However, it's not that bad. The Bush campaign will likely go off the air the week of the Democratic convention, July 26-29. Both parties will also go dark during the Olympics August 13-29. The RNC convention exploits the 9-11 dead on August 30-September 2. And then all hell will break loose as both parties launch their desperate final two months of the campaign. So Kerry's disadvantage will be far less than thought. There won't be a whole hell of a lot happening on the air wars (where the biggest expenses lie) between the Dem and GOP conventions.
It will not be enough for Kerry to win... he must win by enough so that even the rabid Repubs accept the fact that he won. It would also be nice if he won by enough to thoroughly repudiate the approach to governing exhibited by the current administration.
