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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (39628)	7/13/2007 11:28:40 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 541747

And some good news :-) \............... Republicans giving less to presidential races By Steve Holland Fri Jul 13, 1:45 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans, gloomy over Iraq and other issues, are contributing far less to their party's presidential candidates than Democrats are giving to theirs, raising questions about Republican prospects in 2008. In the past three months, Democratic presidential candidates raised an estimated $81.2 million compared to about $46.6 million for Republicans. "It's not a good sign for the Republicans at this point," said Jan Baran, a campaign finance expert and former general counsel of the Republican National Committee. "They've got to be hoping that they can energize their base as well as independents between now and November of 2008, and if they can't, they're going to be in trouble." Democrats, emboldened by the prospect of winning the White House for the first time since President George W. Bush took power in 2001, have been enthusiastic donors. And no candidate has generated as much enthusiasm as Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, the fund-raising leader whose campaign has generated contributions from a stunning 258,000 donors, many of them giving relatively small sums like $25 or $15. "The common theme that he is hearing from voters of all different ages and background is that people are ready for change and new leadership," said Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, leading in the polls among Democratic candidates, has also been a big draw, using the fund-raising machine that her husband, Bill Clinton, engineered to win two presidential elections in the 1990s. "It's undeniable that there's more enthusiasm for the Democrats," said Clinton spokesman Phil Singer. Mary Boyle, spokeswoman for the political watchdog group Common Cause, decried the attention paid by the candidates to raising funds. "Our elections should be about ideas and people and policy and voters. What we're seeing is who can vacuum up the most checks the quickest. The reality is our campaign finance system is broken," she said. OF LITTLE CONSEQUENCE Republicans insist that at this point, comparing fund-raising numbers between the parties is technically of little consequence, since now it is Republican versus Republican and Democrat versus Democrat. They believe that when a Republican nominee is selected, the money will flow in as always and their candidate will be able to run a national campaign next year. What is more, Republicans say contributions to the Republican National Committee, money that will go toward assisting the party's candidates in various races next year, has far out-paced that of the Democratic National Committee. "It's certainly a difficult political environment for the Republican Party," said RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt. "But the Republican brand remains strong and we are confident that we will have the resources we need to be successful next year." Republicans are disheartened over the increasingly unpopular Iraq war and over a U.S. immigration overhaul pushed by Bush that conservatives rebelled against because they considered it an amnesty for illegal immigrants. "It'd be nice if things turn around in Iraq, it'd be nice if the president would stop proposing bills such as the immigration bill, it'd be nice if the Republicans would get credit for the strong economy, and it would be nice if there were no more indictments of politicians," Baran said. Michael Malbin, an expert at the Campaign Finance Institute, said the absence of a clear heir apparent in the Republican field has hurt as well. Particularly damaged has been the campaign of Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who has dumped staff members and tried to right his struggling campaign after reporting last week he only had $2 million cash on hand. McCain's support for Bush's troop buildup in Iraq and the immigration plan were factors in his fall from early front-runner status. Republican strategist Charlie Black, a McCain adviser, said fund-raising by the top three Republicans, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and McCain, has been strong. "The problem is you've got the Clinton fund-raising machine which is the best in the history of the world on one side, and you've got Obama who is an Internet phenomenon also in that party. I look at what they're doing as extraordinary, rather than what we're doing as bad," he said