Interesting
On the night of Sept. 16, Barack Obama will not be in Cincinnati, Ohio, or Lebanon, Va., or Grand Rapids, Mich., or any of the other swingiest regions of the swingiest swing states. Instead, the Democratic presidential nominee will start his evening at a 46,000 square-foot mansion in Beverly Hills, then proceed to the posh Beverly Wilshire hotel, where rooms start at $495 a night. Needless to say, Obama won't be prospecting for votes in the Golden State, where he currenty leads Republican rival John McCain by an insurmountable 15-point margin. He'll be mining for money.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. When Obama opted out of public financing--unlike McCain, who gladly accepted an $84.1 million check from the American taxpayers on Sept. 5--the chattering classes predicted that his efficient Web-based small-donor money machine would rake in "around or above $300 million" for the two-month general election campaign, a sum even larger than his record-shattering $272 million primary haul. But as we noted (first on July 11 and again on Aug. 19) "the real surprise" of this year's cash chase is that "it's much more competitive than anyone expected." Take July, for example. While Obama netted a massive $51 million--again clobbering McCain, who racked up $27 million--the important statistic to look at is the combined amount of cash-on-hand for each candidate and his party (i.e, how much is actually available to spend on getting the nominee elected). In this case, the totals were nearly identical: the Republicans finished the month with $96 million in the bank ($75 million for the RNC, $21 million for McCain) versus $94.3 million for the Democrats ($25.8 million for the DNC, $65.8 million for Obama). In other words, the "mighty" Obama and "measly" McCain--who raised only $120 million over the course of the entire 16-month primary campaign--were tied. So much for the punditocracy's pecuniary predictions.
Stumper : Was Obama Right to Opt Out of Public Financing?
