Obama Campaign Cannot Raise The Funds It Needs, And Is Now Publicizing Its Campaign Strategies As Part Of A Desperate Plea For More Money
[Posted by WLS]
I have held off writing this post on the August fundraising reports because I have not been able to get the DNC’s fundraising report for August off of the FEC website. Five days after it was filed, the FEC website says the report is still being processed.
But Jeane Cummings at Politico seems to have seen copies of both reports, and states in this story today that Obama and the DNC started the general election campaign with a 2-1 disadvantage in cash-on-hand when compared to McCain and the GOP, which have approximately $177 million after McCain received his $84 million in public financing, and Obama and the DNC having only $95 million.
We know Obama had $77 million in cash-on-hand on Aug. 31 according to his campaign’s FEC filing. I’m still looking for confirmation that the DNC had another $18 million — call me skeptical.
One interesting note with respect to Cummings’ article is that she gets someone on the Democrat side of the fence to say that Obama will have to raise $110 million to $115 million in order to net out the $84 million in public financing that McCain received, the difference being the hard dollar “costs” of continuing a fundraising operation during the general campaign. That doesn’t include the “soft” cost of time lost on the campaign trail. Two nights ago, Obama was in Chicago raising $2 million — again, not on the trail in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Colorado, etc.
But let’s go back to the math:
In August the Obama campaign reported spending $57 million while raising $66 million. McCain spent $48 million, but he had to because he couldn’t carry over his funds into the general election campaign, and he was restricted on what he could send to the RNC.
Obama’s campaign spending includes a significantly higher level of infrastructure spending, such as paid staff and office costs. This reduces flexibility in how he spends money over the next 45 days because you can’t re-program money needed for payroll, health insurance, office and equipment leases, etc., the same way you can redirect advertising and GOTV expenses as the campaign unfolds.
So McCain/RNC had about $175 million to start September. Let’s say they raise another $75 million net (after fundraising expenses), for a total of $250 million to spend over the last 60 days.
To have that same amount, starting with $95 million he had on Sept. 1, Obama needs to raise $155 million more net after expenses. That’s nearly twice what McCain’s public financing was — just to be even. Remember the Politico article quotes a Democrat source as saying Obama nets only about 77 cents of every dollar raised. So, to have $155 million to spend, Obama needs to raise $190 million, or $95 million a month — an increase of 50% above his highest total ever.
Here’s the second part of the Cummings’ story that is very interesting: the Obama campaign reveals to her that they are “planning” to spend $39 million on Florida alone.
What the Obama campaign wants the press to believe and report to Democrat/Obama contributors is that if it were it to hit all its fundraising targets, and raise $280 million, the campaign would spend $1 out of every $7 in Florida.
I’m calling B.S. on this. Obama doesn’t need Florida to win. And Florida is an uphill struggle given the outcomes in 2000 and 2004. Obama doesn’t have Gore’s appeal as a Southerner, he has problems with older and Jewish voters who dominate many areas of Florida, and he’s got even less support in the Cuban community than did Gore and Kerry.
The campaign’s public message is “We’re going to turn out a half-million African-Americans and young voters were were registered in 2004 but didn’t vote, and they’ll be the difference.”
B.S. again. George Bush took a 500-vote win in 2000 and turned it into a 300,000 vote win in 2004. McCain is going to do even better state-wide in Florida than Bush did.
So, why the deception of the public by Obama? Nothing more than waving the new “Bloody Shirt” of politics — “REMEMBER FLORIDA!!!!!”
It’s marketing for fundraising, nothing more and nothing less. It’s intended to generate hysteria among the leftwing nuts in order to crack open their pocketbooks. He’s raising money slower than they had anticipated, and with a little bit of a wind at his back in recent polling, the “urgency” to contribute is probably not there among his Internet contributors. Remember: he had its biggest fundraising months in the primaries when he was still seen as the underdog to Clinton. Once he overtook her and assumed the position of running out the clock, his fundraising dropped off. His fundraising would be better now if he were 1-3 points behind and still looked like the outsider and the underdog.
Telling Politico to write that they are planning on spending $40 million in Florida is just transparently bogus, because the path to winning isn’t through Florida — unless they see very real problems elsewhere.
The best electoral map for Obama to the White House is to win Colorado, New Mexico, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. All those states are much cheaper to contest than Florida, and he’s much more likely to win all of them than to win Florida.
On that map McCain can win Nevada, Florida, Virginia, Missouri, and Ohio, and he would lose 273-265.
If Obama truly intends to spend $40 million in Florida, then it means he fears losing Pennsylvania or Michigan, and Florida is intended to compensate for one of those two losses. If he lost both Pennsylvania and Michigan, winning Florida wouldn’t save him — he’d lose to McCain 276-262.
– WLS
Obama can’t raise the funds he needs? Yeah, there’s a lot of that going around these days.
Comment by dchamil — 9/25/2008 @ 6:39 am
But what, what about the millions and millions of small, individual donors – you know, the ones screaming for changey, hopey, we are the world? Yeah, right – it always came down to the fat cat donors of the Dem Party – and Obama’s been losing them ever since he treated Hillary like dirt. Karma’s a bitch, Messiah.
Comment by Dmac — 9/25/2008 @ 7:05 am
For what it’s worth, I think McCain is going to take New Hampshire. If he does that, and holds Virginia & Ohio, Obama can celebrate winning Michigan & Pennsylvania AS he concedes the election.
Comment by Icy Truth — 9/25/2008 @ 7:16 am
WLS -
In one of your early predictions, you said that Obama would have to do fundraising appearances instead of just campaigning and that such would reduce his on the stump time. That has proven to be right on target. However, there was a mention in one article I read that the middle class PA folk were turned off by Obama saying one thing to them on one day and then jetting off to CA to raise funds in that lavish celebrity dinner.
Thus, not only did Obama lose time (as you correctly predicted) but he also appears to be losing voters by what he does to raise the funds themselves.
Comment by jim2 — 9/25/2008 @ 9:04 am
I have seen college kids in official DNC t-shirts canvassing for donations in West LA over the last week. On Tuesday not only did I run into them at 3 markets, but they also came door-to-door.
Talk about beating the, um, bushes.
Comment by Kevin Murphy — 9/25/2008 @ 9:34 am
#3 McCain also needs to hold Colorado, and right now he’s trailing outside the margin of error in most polls. If he doesn’t hold Colorado, we could be looking at a 269-269 electoral college tie (286 plus NH (4) and minus NM (5), Col (9) and Iowa (7)), which would likely mean an Obama win, given the Democratic makeup of the House.
Comment by Sean P — 9/25/2008 @ 9:42 am
Sean P – Wouldn’t that be some delicious political theatre ?
Comment by JD — 9/25/2008 @ 9:45 am
Kevin Murphy — and I would be willing to bet you that they are NOT raising money for Obama — but rather are competing for funds with Obama. They are probably raising money for the DNC given the T-shirts you describe.
Another consequence of the decision to not take public financing is that Obama is now the Big Dog on the DNC block with his Hoover out sucking up cash.
Historically, the nominee in the last 60 days raises money along his campaign stops for the party and local candidates. Now the DNC and local candidates are competing with Obama for the same funds.
Comment by WLS — 9/25/2008 @ 9:49 am
With all the finanial pain people are going through, we need more money for the most expensive and least experienced candidate in history?!!?
I think not!!
Funding Obama is like buying one of the $1 million plus 2000 sf fixer uppers in san fran bay area.
It’s bubble thinking. Or a bubble campaign of hype and chains.
Comment by Travis Monitor — 9/25/2008 @ 10:14 am
Better analysis this time WLS. I might quibble with some of your interpretations, but I think you’ve generally got the facts right.
I’d say Michigan looks to be McCain’s best chance for a big pick-up (besides NH), but Virginia looks more and more to be falling into Obama’s column. I read recently (I think Politico?) that McCain has pulled Palin off of fundraising duty for the RNC (they substituted in Cindy & “the First Dude” at one dinner) – don’t know how that will play out.
Shaping up to be another nail-biter all the way to the finish – I’d still say current advantage: Obama
Comment by Bob Loblaw — 9/25/2008 @ 11:38 am
The link to that Politico story now opens to “the page you requested cannot be found”.
Comment by joe — 9/25/2008 @ 11:39 am
I wonder if the Florida “tip” is also a smoke screen to disguise where he’s really making his plays. Despite the fact that he had supposedly pulled his resources from North Carolina ages ago, he’s had advertisements on the tube almost every night for weeks. Both he and Michelle have made appearances here in the last few weeks as well, and I’d be amazed if they didn’t have a big voter registration drive going on right now. The spread here is about the same as it is in Michigan.
Comment by JM Hanes — 9/25/2008 @ 2:06 pm
Great post, WLS, and great comments. There’s nothing half this sensible in the newspapers.
Comment by m — 9/25/2008 @ 2:20 pm
Respectfully (and I could be wrong) but I think you meant “DNC” in the second paragraph re: the $95 million. (You used RNC twice).
Great post, though.
Comment by Americano — 9/25/2008 @ 4:44 pm
There is another fund recently created that has to be taken into account here.
OBAMA VICTORY FUND
FEC Committee ID #: C00451393
This is a joint fund with the DNC that has raised a ton of cash in the couple of months it has been around since the donation limit is 28k plus due to the fund type.
joint fund report
Comment by daytrader — 9/25/2008 @ 5:17 pm
As his campaign goes, so would the money in his Democrat administration, if elected.
Comment by 4 Borders Pundit — 9/25/2008 @ 5:35 pm
Sean P —
There’s another scenario: McCain takes Minnesota, wins 279-259.
Not as unlikely as it might seem.
Comment by Icy Truth — 9/25/2008 @ 6:01 pm
Obama wins Virginia only in a +6 point national blowout.
I’m still a fan of Jay Cost’s analysis of Virginia. The polling is simply oversampling democrats based on a belief that the growth in N.Virginia means more Dems at the polls. But as Costs pointed out, if Kerry had TRIPLED his margin of victory in N.Virginia, he would have still lost.
Looking at the model of Warner and Kaine winning the governor’s race statewide is simply erroneous. Kaine was the mayor of Richmond, and Warner is moderate/conservative. Obama is a machine liberal.
To win statewide, Dem candidates have run even or won in the Hampton Roads/Virginia Beach/Norfold area. That’s a huge military area, and McCain is going to do better there than Bush did against Kerry.
The rest of Virginia resembles West Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
So, Obama will win Virginia when he’s winning West Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. That would be a 400+ electoral vote blowout.
Comment by WLS — 9/25/2008 @ 6:41 pm
WLS, I don’t doubt you have a better bet on McCain winning Virginia at even money, and I’m suitably impressed with your ability to drill down into the districts. However, if I could get a bet with odds that replicate Obama taking Virginia with less than 400 electoral votes I’d be all over it
Comment by Bob Loblaw — 9/25/2008 @ 7:16 pm
Well, here ya go. This is exactly what I was worrying about in #12 above, per Rasmussen:
This is not good news. The Obama camp is a total disinfo machine when it comes to where they are and what they are doing.
Comment by JM Hanes — 9/25/2008 @ 11:33 pm