KERRY SMASHES FUNDRAISING RECORDS!
Kerry fund-raising signals hope for party
Donations set record, but GOP still out in frontBy Jim VandeHei
Updated: 10:57 p.m. ET April 01, 2004Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) will announce today that his presidential campaign has raised more than $43 million in the first three months of this year, smashing Democratic Party records and signaling a party-wide fundraising resurgence for Democrats, according to top party officials.
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Kerry, recovering from shoulder surgery in Boston, will report that he followed a trail blazed by former rival Howard Dean to net better than $26 million from the Internet alone, which is emerging as the Democrats' most powerful fundraising mechanism for the presidential election.
It appears Kerry is not draining money from fellow Democrats, as some party officials feared: The Democratic National Committee broke its previous record by raising $27 million, while the House and Senate campaign committees, which both topped $11 million, also set all-time highs last quarter. The figures, which were provided by top party officials, will be released today. Several Democrats credited anti-Bush energy, rather than excitement about Kerry, for the turnaround.
President Bush, who recently hit his reelection campaign's $170 million fundraising goal, maintains a commanding early money advantage. The Bush team has used this money for a massive television advertising campaign in swing states designed to define Kerry as a waffling, tax-raising liberal.
But the unexpected fundraising surge shows Democrats are far more competitive financially against Bush and suggests the pool of Democratic money runs much deeper than officials from both parties originally projected, GOP and Democratic strategists say. The Kerry campaign initially projected it would raise $80 million this year, then Kerry fundraisers said in interviews last month it could top $100 million in 2004 alone.
"You can easily see a scenario where he hits $120 million, particularly given the fact the race is so close and will continue to be close," said Anita Dunn, a Democratic strategist.
The Kerry fundraising totals cast doubts on doomsday projections that the new campaign finance law -- which cracked down on large unlimited "soft money" checks from wealthy individuals, labor unions and businesses -- would inevitably hurt the Democratic nominee most. In past elections, Democrats were more dependent on soft money than Republicans.
Tight money race
Scott Stanzel, spokesman for the Bush campaign, predicted the president "will be outspent in this campaign" if money from outside groups such as labor unions and new liberal soft money entities such as the Media Fund are factored in.
Republicans, who in recent elections raised at least twice as much as Democrats, are expected to win the money race again in 2004, but the overall margin could be tighter, strategists from both parties say. DNC Chairman Terence R. McAuliffe said it is possible Democrats could draw even.
If Kerry goes on to win the presidency, historians might look back on his decision to forfeit federal matching funds during the Democratic primary as a seminal moment of his candidacy. By doing so, Kerry is not restrained by fundraising and spending caps as Al Gore was in 2000 and every Democratic nominee before him. Instead, Kerry is following the Bush model: Forget matching funds, and focus on small donors and party insiders who can bundle together tens of thousands of dollars in $2,000 checks.
If needed, many Republicans believe Bush can top $250 million. Now that Bush has hit his $170 million goal, he will help raise money for the Republican Party, his aides said, and the campaign's top fundraising officials are turning their attention to the Republican National Committee's "victory" fund, which pays for get-out-the-vote activities. Last night, Bush kicked off his party drive by speaking at a dinner for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Kerry, while largely undefined in the eyes of many voters, is tapping into anti-Bush fervor sweeping the Democratic Party to compete financially with the president early on. In the first three months of this year, Kerry, with more than $40 million, came close to matching Bush. Bush will report raising more than $50 million in the past three months, according to a campaign aide who demanded anonymity to discuss internal figures. All of the Democratic presidential candidates combined raised almost as much as the president in 2003.
Although Republicans and Democrats alike predicted a few months ago that Bush would spend the Democratic nominee into the ground, it now appears that Kerry, with the help of outside liberal groups funded with soft money, will have resources to keep pace with Bush and his allies, strategists from both parties say.
In a meeting with Washington Post editors and reporters yesterday, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie and other top Bush campaign officials complained that Kerry -- with a huge assist from Democratic soft money groups -- is going dollar-for-dollar with Bush in key TV markets in the 17 battleground states.
Extraordinary step
The Bush campaign has taken the extraordinary step of asking the Federal Election Commission to step aside and allow the courts to make an immediate ruling on whether Kerry is illegally coordinating with these groups. Some Republicans believe they can swamp Kerry if soft money is removed from the equation.
Staff writer Mike Allen contributed to this report.
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