WASHINGTON - John McCain raised almost as much money as Barack Obama in May, placing him virtually on the same financial footing as his Democratic rival — a level of parity that would have been unimaginable just a few months ago.
The Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting raised $21.5 million last month. He had $31.5 million in the bank, up $10 million from the end of April.
Obama had his weakest fundraising month of the year. The Illinois senator's campaign raised $21.9 million in May. The disclosure came a day after the Democratic candidate's reversal on the question of whether he would take public financing for his presidential bid, a move which drew sharp criticism from McCain.
Obama's campaign said it had $43.1 million in the bank at the end of the month, with debts of about $304,000.
McCain's campaign said the Republican spent $11.6 million during May and ended the month owing $1.27 million, with $31.5 million in the bank. That figure is up $10 million from the end of April.
Obama's fundraising figure for May is less than the $30.7 million he raised in April.
Not really, May was his worst month since Iowa. Meanwhile McCain got a boost from wrapping up all the big-time donators.
"A cult is a religion with no political power." -Tom Wolfe Pardon me for sounding like a dick, but I'm playing the tiniest violin in the world right now-Dalton
During May everyone with half a brain knew that Clinton couldn't possibly catch up with delegates, so there was no point in financing Obama's primary campaign any further, but Clinton still hadn't conceded the nomination which likely led to some would-be donors holding on to their general election money just in case Clinton managed to pull some sort of back room shenannigans to get the nomination. Now that Clinton's campaign is for all intents and purposes dead and buried things should pick up again.
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McCain is also likely to run into the same problem that Clinton had when going up against Obama with the money race, which is that Obama's money comes from huge numbers of donations that are small on average, so his donors tend not to run into the personal donation cap of $2300. Meanwhile, Clinton tended to rustle up smaller numbers of donors who would all give $2300 dollars. So she'd get a pile of cash one time, but when that money was spent she had nowhere to go to get more. This month will probably be McCain's peak.
I think he's aware of the fact that he's going to fade in the stretch, too. I mean, how else do you explain his retarded offer to Obama to do a bunch of town hall meetings? He wants to pull Obama out of his arena style venues, reduce the amount of news coverage that Obama gets, and maybe shine a little in the reflected spotlight. Basically it's the same tactic as when Clinton kept challenging Obama to another debate towards the end of the primary race. Obama has tremendous momentum, so they're desperate to just slow him down.
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Pablo Sanchez wrote:
I think he's aware of the fact that he's going to fade in the stretch, too. I mean, how else do you explain his retarded offer to Obama to do a bunch of town hall meetings?
McCain's preferred speaking style is in front of town halls (it might be because he's hitherto gotten fairly favorable audiences. McCain's daughter has a blog that includes plenty of pictures from the campaign, (McCainBloggette.com) There's a recurring theme that Senator McCain loves the townhall format. [/quote]
The rain it falls on all alike
Upon the just and unjust fella'
But more upon the just one for
The Unjust hath the Just's Umbrella
Gerald Tarrant wrote:
McCain's preferred speaking style is in front of town halls (it might be because he's hitherto gotten fairly favorable audiences. McCain's daughter has a blog that includes plenty of pictures from the campaign, (McCainBloggette.com) There's a recurring theme that Senator McCain loves the townhall format.
All it takes is one "townhall" where Obama brings out 90% of the population of the town and you see McCain run away from the format. The reason McCain likes town halls is not just because he finds favorable audiences but because he has some of the same people who would hand pick the Bush 2004 townhall's. No word yet on "loyalty oaths" or anything similar but they only go to locations that they can count on finding large numbers of poor uneducated republicans, and wealthy neocons.
"A cult is a religion with no political power." -Tom Wolfe Pardon me for sounding like a dick, but I'm playing the tiniest violin in the world right now-Dalton
Keep in mind that the townhall format is also in line with how Senator McCain runs his campaign bus, much less scripted than most debate formats. Senator Obama has also had a few recent dustups where he's had to apologize for remarks he made while speaking extemporaneously. McCain has more practice at that sort of free-for-all. Also McCain's delivery of an average prepared speech has been pretty wooden so far, Senator Obama has him thoroughly beaten in that area. Also McCain has already gotten plenty of criticism from conservatives for his wildly changing policy positions, Obama has missed that, although his recent speeches suggest some of the expected "run to the middle" of the post primary; meaning McCain has a little more practice absorbing and talking about personal/political criticisms.
All-in-all it looks like a townhall would play well to McCain's strengths, and might showcase a few of Obama's weaknesses. It's strategically probably McCain's best shot; especially since Senator Obama will become the first major candidate to bypass public financing since the system was set up.
The rain it falls on all alike
Upon the just and unjust fella'
But more upon the just one for
The Unjust hath the Just's Umbrella
Townhalls are also easier to rig. After all, even Fox had to admit a townhall was invite-only for 'McCain supporters and select independents', though not until after the fact.
What? Is anyone going to pretend the GOP doesn't pull this?
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Out Of Context theatre: Ron Paul has repeatedly said he's not a racist. - Destructinator XIII on why Ron Paul isn't racist.
So I wonder if anyone has recent estimates of how much this election is going to cost? I’ve heard 1 billion thrown around before, but that seems way too low now.
The 2000 election has about 300 million in spending from both parties, in 2004 that jumped up to around 550 million… but now come to 2008 and the Hiliary/Obama/McCain axis has collectively spent over 500 million, while other candidates spending amounted to another 200 million besides that! Over 700 million spent and the formal contest hasn’t even started! We could easily have another billion and a half plus dollars in fucking annoying as shit TV ads to go. Despite the individual campaign centrifugation cap the money is nowhere close to being exhausted, 200+ million American voters at 2300 bucks a head (its easy enough for rich people to have friends make contributions for them so ever voter counts) makes for an awful huge chunk of change.
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Sea Skimmer wrote:So I wonder if anyone has recent estimates of how much this election is going to cost? I’ve heard 1 billion thrown around before, but that seems way too low now.
The 2000 election has about 300 million in spending from both parties, in 2004 that jumped up to around 550 million… but now come to 2008 and the Hiliary/Obama/McCain axis has collectively spent over 500 million, while other candidates spending amounted to another 200 million besides that! Over 700 million spent and the formal contest hasn’t even started! We could easily have another billion and a half plus dollars in fucking annoying as shit TV ads to go. Despite the individual campaign centrifugation cap the money is nowhere close to being exhausted, 200+ million American voters at 2300 bucks a head (its easy enough for rich people to have friends make contributions for them so ever voter counts) makes for an awful huge chunk of change.
Not just that you can put somewhere around $28000 per person into the national party so RNC and DNC fundraising will add millions more. Then you've got DCCC, RCCC, DSCC, and RSCC which can get campaign money and do combined ads with the top of the ticket, this election cycle could easily top $3Bn in just party direct spending not even 527 spending.
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Darth Wong wrote:Whenever I hear about American political spending, I'm just in awe. The whole system is fucked up beyond belief.
Whatever happened to the proposed bill in the last election cycle to "Cap" spending by the parties?
It certainly seems like something Obama might ideologoically enforce, and could benefit from as opposed to the Republicans (While in the very short term, the Republicans seem geared to have less money, although that's still more than what a sensible proposed cap would go for).
Still, at least some spending is nice, such as McCain's car bondoogle
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Darth Wong wrote:Whenever I hear about American political spending, I'm just in awe. The whole system is fucked up beyond belief.
True. It has been designed from the ground up to fail and enable corruption.
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Darth Wong wrote:Whenever I hear about American political spending, I'm just in awe. The whole system is fucked up beyond belief.
True. It has been designed from the ground up to fail and enable corruption.
Of course it is. The very people it's supposed to restrict are those who are supposed to write and pass it.
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