As the top tier presidential candidates head for the Super Tuesday primary blitz — 24 states in one day — money is drying up faster than a creek in summertime, leading several of the campaigns to retool in anticipation of the hugely expensive contests to come.
The campaigns keep their financial affairs close to the vest until required to release their year-end financial reports — due to the Federal Election Commission on Jan. 31. While none of the typical indicators are as useful as they once were in this unusual campaign season, money nearly always buys an edge.
That would explain why John McCain’s camp went to New York this week, into would-be Rudy Giuliani territory, to hold several fundraisers. McCain is trying to stomp Giuliani on the former New York City mayor’s adopted turf of Florida, where he has cast his chips in an untested strategy of skipping the early contests to focus on delegate-rich states.
The strategy is on shaky ground as McCain, who just last summer seemed washed up and was working with a threadbare staff and shrunken war chest, recovers his mojo, thanks in part to a McCain-backed surge in Iraq that appears to have lowered the pace of U.S. casualties there.
With early wins in New Hampshire and South Carolina, McCain is beating Giuliani in the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls in Florida, which votes Jan. 29, and he is paying off the debt from his early campaign days. McCain raised a meager $5.7 million in the third quarter but appears on track to spend more freely after working to repay a $3 million line of credit and buy advertising in Super Tuesday states where competitor Mitt Romney is organizing.
Romney is also trying to gain a foothold in Florida, where he’s polling a close third to Giuliani in Florida. Finances are the least of his concerns as the venture capitalist is willing to spend his own money on his campaign.
The former Massachusetts governor won’t say how much he has lent his campaign, but indications are the multi-millionaire Romney is willing to bankroll his effort with as much as $40 million to $50 million of his own money before he puts the checkbook away.
While he has also raised about that much from contributors, Romney has spent liberally in states where he is competitive. The spending has paid off in Nevada, Michigan and Wyoming, where he emerged victorious, but has yet to prove itself in Florida. He spent considerable money in South Carolina, where he came in fourth in last Saturday’s race, though he did pull his advertising in the final week to focus his resources on more winnable contests. Romney plans to spend heavily on advertising in New York, New Jersey, California and other Super Tuesday states, The Hill newspaper reported Wednesday.
Also flush with cash is Ron Paul, the 10-term Texas congressman who keeps a running tally of his earnings on the front page of his Web site. Paul raised $1.85 million on Martin Luther King Day, bringing his total take to more than $3 million since Jan. 1. Estimates are that he raised more than $20 million in the fourth quarter of 2007, which helped him get a second-place showing in the Nevada caucuses. An endorsement from anti-abortion activist Norma McCorvey, a.k.a. “Jane Roe” on Tuesday’s 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, also helped raise his profile, if not his poll numbers ahead of Super Tuesday’s contests. Paul is in single digits in Florida and Feb. 5 states where polling has been done.
Meanwhile, Giuliani’s team has said he will pour $8 million into winning Florida after essentially skipping the early states to save his resources and energy. Whether it will pay off has been the subject of much speculation, but most analysts expect the Giuliani campaign will not be able to continue much further if he does not achieve this critical victory. He is currently running second to McCain in that state.
Mike Huckabee, the Iowa caucuses winner who banked on a strong showing in South Carolina, but came in a disappointing second, has all but conceded the money race. Senior staff have agreed to go without pay and the operation has been and will continue to “live off the land” on a shoestring budget. The campaign has also stopped the costly job of managing its traveling press corps.
Still, Huckabee campaign officials say they have about $2 million on hand and campaign manager Chip Saltsman said the former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister raised $100,000 in Georgia on Tuesday. Huckabee has said he will skip a heavy presence in Florida to concentrate instead on states more amenable to Huckabee’s message, like Georgia and Alabama.
The most recent casualty of the money chase is “Law & Order” star Fred Thompson, who announced on Tuesday his final curtain call on the heels of his poor showing in Saturday’s GOP primary in South Carolina, where reports indicate he spent most of his dwindling war chest. Thompson was reportedly out of cash when he dropped his bid.
“At this point, if you are not emerging as the front-runner and no one is stumbling in front of you, it doesn’t make much sense, and it’s a lot to ask of your donors” to continue contributing, said Monty Warner, director of the Gotham Legal Foundation and former GOP strategist.
“At some point, it gets down to, can you (afford) to travel, can you put up your campaign staff? Unless you want to sleep on someone’s living room floor,” Warner said, noting that “message” candidates like Huckabee, who has a specific appeal to religious conservatives, can continue to raise cash from smaller contributors and grassroots for a little longer than would otherwise be possible.
Meanwhile, the top two Democrats — Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — appear to have much healthier purses, but they too have the challenge of focusing on the best way to pay the costs of reaching key audiences in more than two dozen states.
In the wake of Clinton’s big win in New Hampshire on Jan. 8, the former first lady raked in more than $1 million in one day. Her campaign continues to e-mail weekly contribution requests.
On Monday, Obama became the first presidential candidate to purchase national airtime, in hopes of reaching the widest audience ahead of Super Tuesday. He launched relatively inexpensive ads on both CNN and MSNBC, a decision that drew fire from the Clinton campaign, which said Obama’s blanketing the nation violates a Democratic pledge not to campaign or spend money in Florida.
The Florida State Democratic Party was stripped of its delegates after it deliberately moved its primary date ahead of the national party’s sanctioned schedule. The Obama campaign responded that it had gotten a dispensation from the South Carolina Democratic Party chairwoman because other ad buys would have left out a portion of South Carolina from seeing his ads.
Clinton and Obama each raised $100 million last year, but have spent it at a “furious rate,” according to a Washington Post report on the candidates’ financial situations.
Click here to read The Washington Post article.
Former Sen. John Edwards, who has been in a consistent third place in the early contests, is also facing a financial quandary, according to The Washington Post. The newspaper points out that Edwards is now relying on an endorsement from the powerful Service Employees International Union and the $1.5 million SEIU’s state councils in 12 Super Tuesday states have pledged to spend on voter turnout and communication.
Edwards, a multi-millionaire like several of the candidates, last year agreed to take federal matching funds, which limits the amount he can raise. His competitors have complained about groups running ads for him, saying it’s an unfair advantage and defies the whole point of public financing.
Advertising is by far the costliest element of presidential campaigning, and the combined total of advertising in this election cycle is expected to reach close to $3 billion, $1 billion more than was spent in the 2004 presidential campaign.
According to TNS Media Intelligence, which tracks political advertising, Iowa television and radio stations sold $50 million worth of airtime to the campaigns and interest groups ahead of the Feb. 3 caucuses. In New Hampshire, Clinton spent $5.4 million on advertising, while Obama spent $5 million. The total for Edwards was $1.7 million. Romney reportedly spent more than his rivals combined on television for the New Hampshire GOP primary. Back in October, he had already passed a 10,000-ad milestone, targeting Iowa, New Hampshire and beyond, according to TNS.
In the Los Angeles market alone, which brings with it a potential 370 delegates for the Democratic contenders, 173 for the Republicans, advertising could cost a candidate upwards of $4.5 million a week.
Washington Media strategists like Craig Shirley, a McCain supporter, said the candidates are going to have to be very savvy as to where they focus their advertising resources in the upcoming weeks.
“You pick and choose your strongholds, and bypass your opponent’s strongholds,’ Shirley said. This might be a good strategy in California, where candidates can target specific congressional districts where they have strong support in hopes of ensuring critical delegates.
What candidates are unlikely to do is drop advertisements into the the Feb. 3 Super Bowl — two days before Super Tuesday.
The annual National Football League championship will feature the New England Patriots and New York Giants this year, and certainly draw viewing audiences from northeastern Super Tuesday states like Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Pete Snyder, founder and CEO of New Media Strategies, said buying ad time in the Super Bowl is a waste of cash.
“Any media consultant that recommends that a campaign with two million, three million (dollars) on hand spend two million on a Super Bowl ad be sued for malpractice,” he told FOX News. “That’s why you had the dot-bomb craze a couple of years ago … people were spending millions on ads that showed no returns.”
