White House Hopefuls Face Financing Deadline
Monday, December 01, 2003
WASHINGTON — Democratic hopefuls Wesley Clark (search) and Joe Lieberman (search) will get an important infusion of cash heading into the first round of primaries next month, expecting about $3.6 million or more in their first payments from the presidential public financing system.
The program offers primary candidates who agree to an overall $45 million spending limit a government match for the first $250 of each donation, up to a total of about $18.7 million. Taxpayers fund the program by checking a box on their income-tax returns to direct $3 to it.
The program's first payments to 2004 candidates go out in January, matching contributions they received from last January through November. Candidates taking part had to provide paperwork to the Federal Election Commission (search) by Monday detailing their matchable donations to get the January payment.
"It does help candidates catch their second wind," Lieberman spokesman Jano Cabrera said. The Connecticut senator sent a fund-raising e-mail last month urging donors to "double your impact on the race" by giving up to $250 in matchable money.
Wesley Clark expects more than $3.7 million when the first monthly "matching fund" checks go out Jan. 2, while Lieberman anticipates about $3.6 million. Among the other hopefuls accepting public financing, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina expects about $3.4 million in his January payment; Lyndon LaRouche, $840,000; and Al Sharpton, $100,000.
Figures were not immediately available for Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri or Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.
To qualify for the public money, each candidate must raise at least $5,000 in each of 20 states in donations of $250 or less and keep records of donors' names, addresses and employer information.
One candidate still trying to qualify in recent weeks, Carol Moseley Braun, was wrapping up her paperwork Monday and did not expect to make the deadline. That means she would get her first government payment in February; Braun's campaign hopes for about $300,000 then.
"We'll definitely make that deadline, if I have to crawl to file it," Braun campaign manager Patricia Ireland said.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts this year became the first Democrats in the public financing system's history to opt out, freeing them from its spending limits.
Their decisions to forego the money will help their rivals in the near term. While the program ran short on money in 2000, only giving candidates about 50 cents of each dollar they were entitled to in their first payments, next month it is expected to have enough to give the candidates all — or nearly all — the matching funds they've earned so far.
President Bush, who is skipping the program for the 2004 primaries as he did in 2000, already has raised more than the record $106 million he collected for his first campaign.
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