I am stating the obvious, but Dean has certainly has done a magnificent job of tapping into the hardcore base of the Democratic Party. A fresh face, blunt articulate talk, no significant ties to the Washington establishment. Electable? I doubt it, but who knows. I would expect to see the Kerry people come after him a bit more aggressively over the next couple of months.
Who rakes in money now may decide who vies for votes later Candidates to reveal totals
By Jill Lawrence
USA TODAY
usatoday.com
WASHINGTON -- Presidential candidates routinely beg for money by claiming contributions are critical or urgent or more important than ever. This time, as second-quarter fundraising ends, Democrats are not exaggerating.
At least one, former Vermont governor Howard Dean, says he will report raising more than $6 million, which would propel him into the top tier of the nine-person field. But other hopefuls, notably Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, could face a day of reckoning.
Tonight at midnight is the deadline for filing reports on second quarter fundraising activity to the Federal Election Commission. The field probably won't shrink immediately as a result of the filings, but the fundraising totals will be a concrete measure of each campaign's organizing and sales skills. That, in turn, will influence where future donors send checks.
''It's likely money will flow toward the candidates that have a stronger showing,'' says Douglas Hattaway, a party strategist based in Boston. ''The writing could be on the wall for those who don't fare so well.''
Gina Glantz, who was Bill Bradley's campaign manager in 2000, says candidates need to begin serious spending in September to compete in the quick succession of nominating caucuses and primaries starting Jan. 19. ''That's the problem'' with doing badly now, she says. ''There's no opportunity to recover.''
Three campaigns -- those of Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, former Illinois senator Carol Moseley Braun and civil rights activist Al Sharpton -- are fueled far more by speeches and debate appearances than money. The other six are in a different league, one that involves consultants and staffs and media buys and organizations in states across the country. President Bush is setting the pace in that league; he expects to raise up to $30 million by today's deadline.
Analysts say Lieberman, the 2000 vice presidential nominee, is in the most peril. He was in fourth place last quarter with about $3 million. That was less than half the amounts raised by fellow senators John Edwards of North Carolina and John Kerry of Massachusetts, and only slightly ahead of the $2.6 million reported by the far lesser-known Dean.
Lieberman ''ought to be well ahead, given his status in the party,'' says Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. ''If he doesn't do well for the second quarter in a row, he's going to hear comments suggesting that he should drop out.''
Lieberman said in April that he entered the race late, after Al Gore's December decision not to run, so he shouldn't be judged until the end of June. ''We're playing some catch-up,'' he said in an interview this month, ''but we're having a significantly better second quarter than first.'' Even so, he is expected to be fourth or fifth.
Another candidate with a stiff second-quarter test is Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, who also got a late start after heart surgery early in the year. ''Graham has a lot to prove,'' Sabato says. ''He'll have to be in the top three to be taken seriously.''
Handicappers say it is more likely Graham will be fifth or sixth. He raised just $1 million in the first quarter and, like Lieberman, said his second-quarter numbers would demonstrate his fundraising prowess. But now Graham aides are saying he will come into his own in the third and fourth quarters.
Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri posted a modest $3.5 million in the first quarter despite an earlier presidential run and years raising money nationwide for House candidates. He is expected to trail Dean and others this quarter.
Kerry, who reported $7 million last quarter, is now trying to hold down spending and expectations. ''What matters is money in the bank,'' he said in an interview. ''If you raise lots of money and you spend it all, you're in trouble.''
Erik Smith, Gephardt's spokesman, offers a different standard. ''Every campaign should be judged on its ability to raise more money in the second quarter than the first quarter,'' he says.
Edwards spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri retorts, ''If my candidate had raised $3.5 million in the first quarter, I would say that, too.'' Her yardstick: the year-to-date total.
Edwards, a trial lawyer who is in his first term of his first political office, was the surprise champion last quarter with $7.4 million. Some analysts say it's important that he match or come close to that this week because so far, donor support is what is giving his campaign legitimacy. His poll numbers, nationally and in early primary states, are in single digits. But Edwards plans to campaign intensively in the next two months and run his first TV ads over the summer.
In the 2000 campaign, Democrats had a two-person nomination contest between Bradley and Gore, then the vice president, while Republicans had 10 candidates. Between mid-July and mid-October 1999, the same point that is approaching in the current campaign, four Republicans dropped out. Most of them cited money shortages. |
