To Democrats now giddy about what appears to be a huge campaign funding advantage enjoyed by presumptive Presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, you might control your giddiness: the RNC has out-raised the DNC five times over and is expected to use its money to level the campaign funding playing field for Republican presumptive nominee Sen. John McCain.
The Los Angeles Times’ Andrew Malcolm writes:
Led by chairman Mike Duncan, the Republican National Committee ended May with 13 times more money in the bank than its Democratic counterpart, and raised five times as much money in the same time frame.
As The Times’ campaign finance guru Dan Morain points out, the sums are significant as presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain squares off against the far more richly-funded Sen. Barack Obama for the last 136 days of the general election campaign.
Based on the numbers so far, the Republican Party appears poised to act as the financial equalizer in the fall campaign. The RNC disclosed that it ended May with $53.5 million in the bank, compared to $3.9 million for the Democratic National Committee, which is headed by Howard Dean.
McCain, an Arizona senator, had $31.6 million as of May 31, compared with $33.3 million for Obama, Federal Election Commission records show. The RNC had $53.5 million to just under $4 million for the Democrats. The party committees act as shadow campaigns, concentrating their efforts on backing the presidential candidates.
Obama, 46, and Democratic fundraisers have turned their attention to filling the DNC’s coffers now that the Illinois senator has secured the party’s nomination. A fundraiser at Ethel Kennedy’s Hickory Hill estate in Virginia earlier this week netted close to $6 million, and a May 31 event in New York City headlined by former Vice President Al Gore brought in around $1 million more.
The visions some analysts have seemingly suggested of a broke McCain being to a point where he might have to scream on a street corner while Obama ads run coast to are a bit overblown. In fact, Bloomberg’s report suggests that if you add it all together at this point McCain has more money than Obama:
When combined with the Republican National Committee’s bank balance, McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, had more money to spend than Obama during the three months leading up to the national party conventions.
In rejecting public campaign financing this week, Obama pointed to the use by GOPers of 527 groups. Yet, there are indications that the 527s aren’t getting the money they used to and that they may not be as big a Republican weapon as they have in the past.
And Republican strategists will need big bucks more than ever in the early part of the campaign when they try to define Obama in a way that sticks with voters. The early signs: Republicans will take a page from the 2004 playbook and try to define Obama as a callow, serial flip-flopper like they did with 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry.
Meanwhile, Republicans may now be tempted to feel a bit giddy — or, if not that, at least not totally gloomy — due to this tidbit of news: May was a “slow” month for Obama’s fundraising, netting him “only” $22 million, just a tad more than McCain.
However, GOPers should not start building the “Campaign 2008: Mission Accomplished” sign that’ll go behind the inaugural ceremony roster just yet. The divisive Democratic primary is over. And Clinton is getting her top donors together with Obama to smooth ruffled feathers.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.