ksuave, I think the Democratic nomination race is over and Hillary will put her final stamp of approval on that process today. It is encouraging to see that team Obama has a plan which stretches not only beyond Super Tuesday, but right up until the GE.
============================
Obama Leads in Laying Campaign Groundwork
Big Spending Edge Presents McCain With Uphill Fight
By B Y CHRISTOPHER COOPER
June 7, 2008
As the race begins between Barack Obama and John McCain, the Democrat is far ahead in laying the groundwork for a national campaign.
Federal records from February through April show Sen. Obama has outstripped Sen. McCain in spending for a campaign's most-important functions -- a staff of field directors to round up volunteers and get out the vote, a chain of local offices to call strategy and dispense paraphernalia, and a robust advertising and direct-mail schedule.
Sen. McCain, by contrast, has done little advertising, has a much leaner ground army, and is fielding only a handful of campaign offices ahead of the general election.
The mismatch in spending for the building blocks of a national campaign comes in part because Sen. Obama has had to pour resources into an intensive nominating battle far longer than Sen. McCain, who effectively sealed the Republican title four months before Sen. Obama sealed his party's nod this week. But the extended primary battle could benefit the Illinois freshman senator in November, because he has a ready staff in several key states and has built his name-recognition. The disparity also exists because Sen. Obama has been a far more-effective fund-raiser than Sen. McCain.
So far in 2008, combined campaign-spending data for the three most recent months available -- February, March and April -- show that Sen. Obama outspent Sen. McCain 4.5-to-1 on staff salaries, more than 2-to-1 on office rents, and 25-to-1 on broadcast advertising, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Sen. Obama has about 700 employees on the payroll, scattered across 19 states. The McCain cadre is around 100, divided among a handful of local offices.
"The long primary season gave us the opportunity to build a network of volunteers and staff all across the country," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.
And the disparity may be widening. On Wednesday, the Obama camp said it was sharply expanding its stable of political consultants, pollsters and advertising agencies, supplementing a team that was already outsized in comparison to the McCain organization.
One exception to Sen. Obama's spending edge: fund raising. But in that case, the figures suggest Sen. McCain's apparatus is less-efficient, as he is spending more to raise less. Sen. McCain spent about $1.5 million in three months to raise $44.2 million. Sen. Obama, whose low-cost, Internet-dominated fund-raising efforts is a standard in his organization, spent $366,000 to raise $127.2 million.
Given Sen. Obama's fund-raising prowess, some Republican operatives say the spending differential with the McCain camp is likely to be permanent. "McCain is never going to catch up -- he's never even going to be in the ballpark," said Scott Reed, a Washington lobbyist and former campaign chairman for Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican presidential nominee.
The lopsided spending is unusual compared with other recent presidential contests. At this point in the past two election cycles, both Sen. John Kerry in 2004 and Vice President Al Gore in 2000 were spending on a par with their Republican rival, George W. Bush. In 2004, both campaigns were spending at a high level, even though Mr. Bush faced no primary competition.
Some of Sen. McCain's advisers concede that the bruising Democratic primary put Sen. Obama through a "fitness regime" that clearly paid early benefits, as one operative put it. And while they don't dispute the figures, "examining a specific window of expenditures is an impossible exercise" and no measure of a candidate's viability, said Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for the McCain campaign.
Michael DuHaime, a political strategist for both the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee, said that at least some of Sen. Obama's recent spending will deliver little in November. Take the deep Republican state of South Dakota, where Sen. Obama fielded staff in advance of the Democratic primary this week that he lost. "I don't know how getting out the vote in South Dakota helps them," Mr. DuHaime said.
Sen. McCain recently began advertising in Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, Mr. DuHaime said. He added that two large swing states -- Florida and Michigan -- were under sanction by the Democratic Party, which barred Sen. Obama from organizing in either place until now. "That hasn't gone unnoticed by us," he said. Sen. McCain campaigned heavily in both states during his short nominating competition, and his Florida victory helped put him over the top.
Mr. DuHaime said it's misleading to look at Sen. McCain's finances on their own, since the RNC will play a big role in organizing his ground game, just as it did for President Bush in 2000 and 2004. He noted that the RNC has substantially outstripped its Democratic counterpart in fund raising through April, $143.3 million to $77.6 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Few expect that disparity will last long; some Democratic fund-raisers said former Clinton supporters are already lining up to donate to the party. Federal rules allow donations to the party of up to $28,000 -- far more than can be given to individual candidates.
Sen. McCain's financing web may be undermined by weakness elsewhere among Republican campaign committees. The National Republican Congressional Committee has been rocked recently by an embezzlement scandal and has seen donations all but dry up as party chiefs conduct a top-to-bottom audit. That organization may need subsidies from the RNC if it hopes to defend the scores of vulnerable Republican congressional seats up for grabs in the fall.
Another potential weakness: the participation by 527 committees, the independent political groups named after the IRS code that governs them. One such 527, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, contributed to President Bush's 2004 victory by focusing negative attention on Mr. Kerry's military record.
Sen. McCain has made a career out of battling the influence of such groups, and has been strident in rejecting their help. Sen. Obama, by contrast, has said little about outfits such as PowerPac, a California 527 that has advertised on his behalf and is conducting a multistate voter-registration drive designed to help him.
Many Republicans are annoyed by Sen. McCain's rejection of 527s, saying it tilts the playing field in favor of Democrats who have historically relied more heavily on them. "John McCain has time and again fought against 527s," says Mr. Bounds. "If that has a negative effect on his candidacy, so be it." |
