Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney provided a jolt to the Republican presidential contest yesterday, reporting a haul of $21 million in the first three months of the year, as Sen. John McCain of Arizona posted a lackluster third-place finish that even his campaign manager called a disappointment.
As campaigns release their first meaningful fundraising figures in what appears certain to become the most expensive presidential campaign in history, McCain's $12.5 million total also put him behind former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who leads the Republican field in public polls and reported taking in $15 million in the first quarter.
Among Democrats, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) has set the pace for the field so far, reporting Sunday that she had raised $26 million in combined primary and general election funds and transferred an additional $10 million from her Senate campaign account. Her total was followed by that of former North Carolina senator John Edwards, who raised $14 million. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois has so far declined to release figures for his campaign.
The totals of the major contenders easily surpassed the record $8.9 million raised by Al Gore in the first three months of 1999.
Romney has labored in single digits in polling but has been an aggressive fundraiser. He launched his campaign with a "National Call Day" at the convention center in Boston in January, where nearly 400 of his supporters, including Meg Whitman, the chief executive of eBay, and Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt called friends to ask them to back Romney. The event raised a whopping $6.5 million in a single day.
But the showing by McCain, who had been ordained the front-runner in the GOP contest from Day One and had worked to win over many of the fundraising Pioneers and Rangers who helped fill President Bush's coffers in 2000 and 2004, was a surprise to both analysts and rival campaigns. Most characterized the numbers as an unexpected sign of distress for a campaign that has been building its machinery for eight years and was one of the first to set up a fundraising committee.
"By any historical measure, $12.5 million is a lot of money," said Alex Vogel, a Republican strategist not affiliated with any candidate. "But McCain was the front-runner for so long, the expectation was he would not come in third."
First I will say that I'm just amazed at the amount of money that all of these candidates have raised. When you compare these numbers to what Al Gore raised in 1999, it is just astounding.
Now for the GOP. Mitt Romney came in first on the fundraising race, taking in $21 million, while McCain only took in $12.5 million for third place behind Giuliani's $15 million? The WaPost story makes it appear that Romney is a stronger fundraiser than an overall presidential candidate. But I think there is more here. The GOP has a problem regarding this 2008 presidential race. They are saddled with a Republican president that is languishing in the public opinion polls at 30-36 percent. The Republicans have been branded as a pro-war party, where the U.S. is stuck in a no-win war in Iraq, and where the American public has both accepted the no-win status of the U.S. in Iraq, and where the American public is supporting a withdrawal timeline to pull the U.S. out of the Iraq war--something that the Bush administration and the Republican Party refuses to accept. The Religious Right conservatives do not like McCain, nor do they like Romney, who is a Mormon. The Republican Party loves to talk about "family values," however two of the front-running presidential candidates of McCain and Guiliani have had multiple marriages and divorces, while the supposed-polygamy-loving-Mormon Romney has only been married once. It is like there is a schizophrenia taking place within the Republican Party where the party faithful and party leaders are begrudgingly accepting the supposed McCain front-runner status, but are desperately seeking a new "heir" to the Bush throne. And while these GOP leaders are desperately seeking their new "heir," they are trying to ignore Romney, who is actually turning out to be the front-runner in his ability to raise such a large amount of cash this early in the game.
As for the Democratic side, I'm not surprised about Hillary Clinton's status here. I wish the Obama campaign released their own fundraising figures, to compare with boht Clinton and Edwards numbers. It is interesting that Clinton was the top fundraiser from both the Democratic and Republican contenders, raising $26 million, with Romney coming in second at $21 million. We'll just have to see what takes place over the course of this year, and into 2008 with the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary.
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