NPR had the best summary I've found on the financial position of the major Republican presidential candidates. (and yes, the Democrats this year are vastly out-fundraising the Republicans)
Giuliani raised $17 million last quarter, for $18 million cash on hand. Romney has $12 million cash on hand, of which nearly $9 million is from Romney's personal loan to the campaign.
But the biggest news is John McCain's implosion.
McCain has only $1.8 million cash net of debts, "an astonishingly low number", putting him in the same financial league as no-hope Democrats Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich. Linda Wertheimer described the McCain campaign as "down to two men and a bus, practically"
Last week the WSJ suggested that McCain could revive his campaign just as Reagan recovered from financial and organizational problems in late 1979.
But Reagan had a large following. George Will today explains why McCain doesn't.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at July 20, 2007 11:30 AM | Email ThisI mean, take:
Giulliani -- already famous, anything he says or does will be in the press.
Thompson -- Hollywood actor, tv star, same as RG.
Romney -- former governor...and rich guy. Son of famous former Presidential candidate.
What do these guys need money for? Or Hillary or Obama or Edwards?
I mean, how about going out and DOING STUFF that is good for the country, and getting your name in the paper and getting publicity that way?
Posted by: John Bailo on July 20, 2007 04:00 PMFirst, he misstates McCain's true situation. In reality McCain has $1.9 million in primary cash on hand before debts (not after), which total $1.75 million. His campaign is virtually living hand to mouth to keep even the spartan operation he's pared down to now running.
Second, the analyst quotes cash on hand largely without respect for whether or not the money can be spent in the primary season or whether it can only be spent in the general. Using this particularly interesting tool here one can see that while Giuliani has $18 million on hand, only $14.7 can be spent on the primaries, whereas all of Romney's $12.1 million is primary money. Likewise, while Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama in overall cash-on-hand, he actually has a modest advantage ($34.5 million to $32.7 million) in money that can be spent on the primaries. That sets up the Democratic contest to be one of the great primary slugfests in modern history.
Posted by: Eric Earling on July 20, 2007 05:37 PMThese are people putting real dollars on the Presidential nomination, they have put McCain in a position that only speculators will put the dough on him, and even with Romney's recent good showing in Iowa and NH polling, the money isn't on him at all.
Posted by: Doug on July 20, 2007 06:06 PMSIDEBAR: Would be neat if somebody could do similar for the state of WA for 2008. The data to support it should all be available from the PDC.
A few of the more interesting visuals that jump out, after running the NY Times map for each candidate:
[1] ... The ''top 6'' declared candidates are the only ones who have run anything close to truly distributed national fundraising operations (soon to be the ''top 5'', as McCain continues his non-recoverable flat spin); and even the soon-2-be top 5 have some interesting concentrations.
[2] ... The overwhelming majority of Clinton's $63M comes from the greater Boston-NY-Wash corridor, Chicago, San Fran, LA, and Miami (no real surprise there). Obama's distribution is somewhat better than Clinton's, even allowing for the understandable spike from Chicago.
[3] ... By my quick look Romney and Edwards have the most even distribtuion of contributions for the Top 6, even with Mitt's spike from Utah. Biggest surpise on the Giuliani map is that he got about 11 percent of all his money just from Texas.
[4] ... Richardson and Dodd are kind of by themselves in the financial 2nd Tier, but they're also mostly regional fund-raisers: Richardson gets about half his $ from NM, TX, and southern CA; with about 31 percent coming just from NM. Dodd's money is even more concentrated, in the Bos-Wash corridor.
[5] ... The rest of them are just along for the ride; and of course Gilmore is already history... although one mildly interesting footnote (not that it will make any difference): Ron Paul got well-distributed contributions from all 50 states.
Posted by: Methow Ken on July 20, 2007 10:17 PMBush's overall approval is at 25 percent.
Among independents approval is at 18 percent.
Yet 68% of Republicans just lurrve the guy.
That tells me people have run AWAY from Republicans as fast as possible and for damn good reason.
Yet what's the solution to this from Republicans like Viguerie? Go further to the right! I AGREE! YES PLEASE DO!