Dave
07-18-2004, 08:42 AM
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39706000/gif/_39706351_vote_usa_2004_hyper.gif
President George W Bush runs the most successful political money machine in history.
Bush's fundraisers get recognition for bringing in money
Back in December, when John Kerry had to re-mortgage his house to keep his campaign alive, Mr Bush had already raised $100m for his re-election bid, breaking a record he himself set in 2000.
Pessimists in the Democratic Party, by no means a minority, took this as a sign that they were in for a drubbing.
Mr Kerry had just $2.5m in the bank by the time he had seen off his Democratic rivals in March (Mr Bush had $150m), but since then, while the president has been taking flak over Iraq, the senator has been quietly setting records of his own.
He raised over $100m in three months - a million dollars a day - making him the best-financed presidential challenger ever.
The Bush campaign spent $85m on advertising in the same period, hoping to kill off Mr Kerry's challenge early on, but with the two men still neck and neck in the polls this looks like money down the drain.
Mr Kerry even outspent the president in April and May.
Skyrocketing costs
It was not supposed to be like this.
Kerry began pushing his website as a fundraising tool
The cost of election campaigns had skyrocketed in a generation - Herbert Alexander of the University of Southern California estimates that the total cost of all elections in the US shot up from $540m in 1976 to $3.9bn in 2000.
That prompted Congress to outlaw "soft money" in 2002.
The term refers to an unregulated system of fundraising and spending in federal election campaigns. Banning it was supposed to end money politics.
Instead the candidates are simply raising even more through "hard money" donations.
These are limited to $2,000 per person and registered with the electoral authorities.
Following on the success of Howard Dean's sensational, but fruitless, campaign for the presidency, they have embraced the internet as a way of cheaply soliciting large numbers of small donations.
After John Kerry started touting his website in stump speeches, his campaign took a record $2.6m in online donations on one day in March.
The Democrats are also exploiting new loopholes in electoral law. Campaign groups known as "527s" (named after a section in the tax code) are exempt from federal regulations on political fundraising.
They can spend this money on attacking Mr Bush, so long as they have no formal contact with the Kerry campaign.
The Republicans initially claimed that these groups violated the soft money ban, but later set up 527s of their own after trying in vain to have the Democratic-leaning ones shut down.
The Republican party's real strength lies in its formidable network of bona fide activists, who solicit individual contributions from their professional and social networks.
The Bush campaign rewards its most successful fundraisers with special titles: "Pioneers" have raised more than $100,000, "Rangers" more than $200,000.
Appreciation events for these elite supporters are held at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Howard Dean raised huge amounts but still failed to get votes
But it is not clear that all the effort that goes into fundraising is worth it.
In high-profile campaigns, no amount of money will beat a popular candidate with good policies.
Predictions that Howard Dean's fundraising advantage would leave his rivals for dust in the Democratic primaries proved groundless.
Successful fundraising could even be a turn-off for voters.
The size of the Bush war chest appears to confirm perceptions that he is in thrall to rich corporate donors, while John Kerry's claim to represent ordinary Americans seems odd when his campaign's survival hinged on raising $6.4m off the value of his Boston mansion.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/04/americas_us_elections_fundraising/img/laun.jpg
Staggering.
President George W Bush runs the most successful political money machine in history.
Bush's fundraisers get recognition for bringing in money
Back in December, when John Kerry had to re-mortgage his house to keep his campaign alive, Mr Bush had already raised $100m for his re-election bid, breaking a record he himself set in 2000.
Pessimists in the Democratic Party, by no means a minority, took this as a sign that they were in for a drubbing.
Mr Kerry had just $2.5m in the bank by the time he had seen off his Democratic rivals in March (Mr Bush had $150m), but since then, while the president has been taking flak over Iraq, the senator has been quietly setting records of his own.
He raised over $100m in three months - a million dollars a day - making him the best-financed presidential challenger ever.
The Bush campaign spent $85m on advertising in the same period, hoping to kill off Mr Kerry's challenge early on, but with the two men still neck and neck in the polls this looks like money down the drain.
Mr Kerry even outspent the president in April and May.
Skyrocketing costs
It was not supposed to be like this.
Kerry began pushing his website as a fundraising tool
The cost of election campaigns had skyrocketed in a generation - Herbert Alexander of the University of Southern California estimates that the total cost of all elections in the US shot up from $540m in 1976 to $3.9bn in 2000.
That prompted Congress to outlaw "soft money" in 2002.
The term refers to an unregulated system of fundraising and spending in federal election campaigns. Banning it was supposed to end money politics.
Instead the candidates are simply raising even more through "hard money" donations.
These are limited to $2,000 per person and registered with the electoral authorities.
Following on the success of Howard Dean's sensational, but fruitless, campaign for the presidency, they have embraced the internet as a way of cheaply soliciting large numbers of small donations.
After John Kerry started touting his website in stump speeches, his campaign took a record $2.6m in online donations on one day in March.
The Democrats are also exploiting new loopholes in electoral law. Campaign groups known as "527s" (named after a section in the tax code) are exempt from federal regulations on political fundraising.
They can spend this money on attacking Mr Bush, so long as they have no formal contact with the Kerry campaign.
The Republicans initially claimed that these groups violated the soft money ban, but later set up 527s of their own after trying in vain to have the Democratic-leaning ones shut down.
The Republican party's real strength lies in its formidable network of bona fide activists, who solicit individual contributions from their professional and social networks.
The Bush campaign rewards its most successful fundraisers with special titles: "Pioneers" have raised more than $100,000, "Rangers" more than $200,000.
Appreciation events for these elite supporters are held at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Howard Dean raised huge amounts but still failed to get votes
But it is not clear that all the effort that goes into fundraising is worth it.
In high-profile campaigns, no amount of money will beat a popular candidate with good policies.
Predictions that Howard Dean's fundraising advantage would leave his rivals for dust in the Democratic primaries proved groundless.
Successful fundraising could even be a turn-off for voters.
The size of the Bush war chest appears to confirm perceptions that he is in thrall to rich corporate donors, while John Kerry's claim to represent ordinary Americans seems odd when his campaign's survival hinged on raising $6.4m off the value of his Boston mansion.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/04/americas_us_elections_fundraising/img/laun.jpg
Staggering.