Stoney Mason
Banned
DES MOINES, July 3 Two more Republican presidential candidates disclosed new fund-raising totals today that underscored the tough political environment for their party and the big money advantage that the Democrats have built so far.
Former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who led the Republican field in money raised in the first three months of the year, said donations to his primary campaign had dropped by a third in the second quarter, to $14 million from $20.5 million. Mr. Romney lent his campaign another $6.5 million out of his personal fortune to soften the impact of the decline in donations.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, raised slightly more in the second quarter than he did in the first: $17 million including $2 million that he can use only if he wins the Republican nomination, versus $16 million. But unlike the first quarter, when his fund-raising operation was just getting up and running, his campaign was fully operational in the second quarter.
And while his performance from April through June put him in first place among Republicans, he trailed substantially behind the record sums raised by two Democrats, Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. Mr. Obama raised a total of $32.5 million in the second quarter, and Mrs. Clinton about $27 million.
Mr. Romney and Mr. Giuliani released the figures a day after Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, reported that he raised less money in the second quarter than in the first, would slash the size of his staff and would focus his campaign on just a few early voting states.
Put together, the results for the three leading Republicans amounted to a stark indication of a gap in enthusiasm and confidence between the two parties, driven in part by President Bushs low approval ratings, the war in Iraq and the failure of any of the Republican candidates to emerge as a clear front-runner, strategists in both parties said.
The top three Democrats, including former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, raised $68.5 million over the past three months, compared with $48.7 million for the top three Republicans, according to the reports. Since the start of the year, the Democrats raised nearly 50 percent more than the Republicans, $144.3 million compared with $101.7 million. That includes money that the candidates can use in the primary and in the general election.
Historically, the second-quarter receipts tend to grow for presidential candidates as donors get more involved and take sides in the race. Aides to the Republican candidates as well as Republicans not involved in the race said that this year might be an anomaly because the campaign had gotten so intense so early, but nonetheless expressed deep concern at the reports and what it said about the health of their party.
Its a combination of the presidents historically low approval rating and the overall state of affairs in Washington that is demoralizing Republicans and energizing Democrats, said Scott Reed, who managed the 1996 Republican presidential campaign of Senator Bob Dole of Kansas. It doesnt mean itll make it all the way to 2008 Election Day, but that sure is the climate we are in now.
Charles Black, a senior adviser to Mr. McCain, suggested that part of what was happening was that some donors were holding back to see if another Republican in particular, former Senator Fred D. Thompson of Tennessee enters the race, as he is expected to do formally in the next few weeks.
The general mood is bad throughout the party, Mr. Black said. There are some donors that are used to giving money all the time, and there are a whole bunch of people who are more casual donors who need to be fired up. The Democrats on the other hand are totally fired up, intensely fired up against the president.
Beyond the symbolism, the divergence in the fund-raising performance of the two parties which also extends to the Congressional campaigns, where Democrats have also built a big cash advantage are likely to influence basic strategic decisions by Republican candidates on matters like when to begin television advertising and where to compete. In early example of this, several Republicans said it was now clear that Mr. Giuliani and Mr. McCain chose to skip the straw poll in Iowa a very high-profile, nonbinding vote by party activists in which Mr. Romney is investing heavily because it could easily cost their campaigns $3 million each to compete.
Aides to Mr. McCain, offering new details of his campaigns financial woes on today, said that the shortfall had forced them to dismiss 80 members of its staff of 120, putting him at a severe disadvantage in states like Iowa, where he had hoped for an early victory in the caucuses to propel him to the nomination.
Mr. McCains staff in Iowa has been cut in half to eight, compared with a staff of 16 in the state for Mr. Romney. Mr. McCains situation here has been aggravated by what his associates described as a clash between Mr. McCains national and Iowa headquarters that resulted in his state director, Matt Strawn, leaving the campaign.
One McCain aide, requesting anonymity in exchange for discussing the dispute, said that some of the people who had left the Iowa headquarters had done so in support of Mr. Strawn, and that the campaign was hoping to expand the staff here should money start coming in. Mr. Strawn declined to comment.
Mr. McCains aides said today that the senator was shutting down his Michigan state office. Given his financial difficulties, the aides said that Mr. McCain was almost certain to accept public money for his campaign, despite the sharp restrictions they would place on his spending in the primary and in the months leading up to the general election, as a way to be able to afford television advertising early this year. They said that would guarantee an infusion of about $6 million, based on what he has raised so far, and perhaps a total of $15 million by the time the caucuses start here in January.
Mr. McCains advisers said they were hoping he would, over the next six months, be able to raise $25 million, matching what he raised in the first half of the year. They acknowledged, though, that that would be difficult because donors would be reluctant to write checks to a campaign that appears to be in crisis.
I wouldnt be straight with you if I didnt say there would be a significant initial drop-off from this, said John Weaver, a senior adviser to Mr. McCain. But our finance people are confident that if we show the kind of movement that we think we can, that well get back on track.
Some of the Democratic advantage appears to stem from the success the partys candidates have had in tapping into grass-roots enthusiasm for dislodging the Republicans from the White House. Mr. Obamas campaign has reported receiving donations from more than 258,000 contributors this year and raising $10 million online in the second quarter. More than 80,000 donors contributed to the Romney campaign in the second quarter, 50,000 of them for the first time; in the first quarter, 32,000 people contributed to his campaign.
For years, Republicans prided themselves on having a large base of individual donors while Democrats relied to a large degree on unregulated soft money donations that have now been banned. So far in this cycle, Democrats appear to be building vast databases of new individual donors who could be called on by the party for years to come.
Mr. McCain reported today that he had just $2 million in the bank to cover the operations of his campaign; Mr. Giulianis campaign said he had nine times as much, or $18 million, and no debt. Mr. Romney has about $12 million in cash on hand for use in the primary.
Mr. McCains aides declined to say what outstanding debt he would report. Mr. Romneys decision to again invest his own money into the campaign he lent it $2.35 million in the first quarter was clearly intended to signal to Republicans that he was prepared to use his personal wealth to offset the bad fund-raising environment his party finds itself in. Mr. Romney has been plowing through his money rapidly, pouring much of it into an expensive early advertising campaign focused on Iowa and New Hampshire that has helped him to leads in recent polls in both states.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/u...&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print