by Damozel | More bad news for Dems: The Obama campaign, which in a
burst of overconfidence decided to forego public campaign financing, is
now going to have to press its donors hard to meet the campaign's
needs. Those who support him had best start thinking about opening
their wallets again. Some of those enthusiastic early donors are
tapped out.
Pushing a fund-raiser later this month, a finance staff member sent a sharply worded note last week to Illinois members of its national finance committee, calling their recent efforts “extremely anemic.”
At a convention-week meeting in Denver of the campaign’s top fund-raisers, buttons with the image of a money tree were distributed to those who had already contributed the maximum $2,300 to the general election, a subtle reminder to those who had failed to ante up.
The signs of concern have become evident in recent weeks as early fund-raising totals have suggested that Mr. Obama’s decision to bypass public financing may not necessarily afford him the commanding financing advantage over Senator John McCain that many had originally predicted. (New York Times)
Many of the forebodings we expressed about the "brilliant" campaign are now coming true. I wish it weren't so, but so it is.
Back in July, Jim Kuehnnen said that Obama's deicsion not to use public financing made him the financial underdog.
Overall, the McCain campaign has estimated that it and Republican Party committees will have $400 million to spend on the presidential election in the months before the November election.
To surpass that level of spending, Obama and the Democratic Party will have to raise about $100 million a month.
That task is making some Democrats anxious....
McCain plans to accept $84 million in public money in the fall _ money he won't have to lift a finger to collect but which will limit his campaign's spending in the fall. The RNC and other party committees will foot the remainder of his campaign bills through coordinated and independent spending on his behalf....
"We have developed a strategy _ a very aggressive strategy _ that will only work if our millions of supporters continue to contribute their time and their money," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said in an e-mail to donors Thursday. (HuffPost)
I know nothing about the economy, but even I could see a hitch in
Obama's scheme when I stopped to think about it. At first I assumed
they knew what they were doing, then I started to wonder. Yes, I said,
it sounds like a great strategy in a shit economy with a
pack of young donors who are now paying $4 + at the gas pumps. I wondered if the campaign had really thought this through.
While McCain gets 84 million from the US Treasury and all the money the RNC---exceeding expectations---can rake in, Obama, now at a disadvantage in the polling, has to keep asking asking asking, as I can attest. (New York Times)
A couple of people gave Obama's campaign some hints about how they could get Clinton's donors to open their wallets:
Tad Devine, a political strategist who was a senior adviser in Democrat John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, says Obama could overcome many financial obstacles by selecting Clinton as his running mate.
"If you're planning the first general election that is not going to be financed by public money and you have the potential to pick someone who has already demonstrated the capacity to raise in excess of $200 million, I would think that would be an enormously consequential consideration," he said. (HuffPost)
::Sigh:: It's depressing. And it could have been so different, with just, say, 20% less arrogance on the part of this campaign.
I really wanted Hillary as VP, and spare me all your arguments about why this wouldn't have worked. I've already thought it through and I'm convinced that this would have been a far more interesting and productive---not to say, unifying---alliance than Obama's and Biden's. In that respect, this poll seems to back me up.
I completely support Obama. I said I would do so if he won the
nomination, and he won the nomination. But I don't have a lot of
money, and I gave money already to Hillary.
Now I have to see what else I can scrape up because I sure don't want McCain to win. One reason---other than limited to resources, that is---that this is a problem for me is that there are other Dems whose campaigns I'd like to donate to and the amount of funds I can donate are limited. The economy sucks and I'm doing the best I can just to survive. (New York Times) So...
[T]he campaign is struggling to meet ambitious fund-raising goals it set for the campaign and the party. It collected in June and July far less from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s donors than originally projected. Moreover, Mr. McCain, unlike Mr. Obama, will have the luxury of concentrating almost entirely on campaigning instead of raising money, as Mr. Obama must do. (NYT)
Anyone who looked ahead could see this coming. I'm sure the
campaign will try to pin the blame on Hillary, but if they'd wanted the
84 million, it would have been there for them.
The hubris of David Axelrod, David Plouffe, and their associated strategists has been remarkable.
They assumed that Obama would pull in Hillary's voters automatically
when the primary was over. They assumed he didn't have to "pander" to
Hillary's voters or to the "bitter," "racist" white women who supported her. They assumed he didn't need their votes when they defected. He assumed Obama didn't need Hillary on the ticket
once he'd won. They assumed that McCain wouldn't have any rabbits to
pull out of his hat. They assumed that progressive enthusiasm would
remain at the same high pitch after Obama's FISA vote.
They assumed that Obama's magic would excite independents and
Republicans as much as it did Dems. They assumed that people would keep
giving money to Obama no matter how dire the economy or how much they'd
already given.
The campaign's vaunted "brilliance" consisted in successfully smearing two former Democratic party stars who many newly minted Dems who know nothing about the Clintons were more than happy to throw to the wolves.
Even so, Hillary remained so popular with Democrats that her
donors still aren't bringing in the suspected influx of money. Those who formerly dismissed her are now turning to her for help against the formidable Palin. Let's
hope she and Bill will be able to persuade defected Hillary supporters and angry donors to open their wallets---or that they'll want to. She has problems of her own, after all.
Yet Obama's party did much too little after the first unity event to
reel those supporters in. Instead, Obama rallied the Europeans---fine
if it had been followed by continued campaigning---and then just faded
out of sight for awhile.
David Plouffe is still confident:
David Plouffe, the Obama campaign manager, said the majority of the Obama campaign’s donors during the primary had yet to write checks for the general election. When they do, he said, it will be the equivalent of the large injection of cash the McCain campaign is receiving from the government — about $70 million or $80 million.
“We’re confident that we will meet our financial goals, but it’s hard work,” Mr. Plouffe said. “We have a long way to go in the next six weeks.(NYT)”
It's upsetting and frustrating to learn of these new problems, however much satisfaction there may be in the verification of past predictions.
So there it is. I want to see Obama elected---I most definitely don't want McCain and Palin--- but I also want to donate money to Senatorial campaigns of various Dems. McCain's "bounce" makes it feel even more urgent now than ever to ensure that Dems control the Senate and therefore to donate to Congressional races.
I'm sure a lot of other Democrats, feeling the current pinch, and fearing the economy that's to come, are feeling as downcast as I am at this additional bad news. Nevertheless, I'm flipping through my checkbook, trying to work out how much I can afford to give. And trust that Obama will begin to focus on voters' self-interest and on showing them how his platform is a million times better for ordinary Americans (as opposed to Wall Street Republicans) and people who are McCain's definition of middle class.
High stakes in this one. And so many, many needless mistakes.
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