Obama campaign's spending outpaces its fundraising

WASHINGTON – As Election Day approaches, President Obama is burning through campaign money faster than he can collect it — exceeding his spending pace at this stage of the 2008 contest as he expands his field operation and trades combative ads on the airwaves with Republican rival Mitt Romney.

By Susan Walsh, AP

President Obama speaks at a fundraiser in New Orleans on July 25.

By Susan Walsh, AP

President Obama speaks at a fundraiser in New Orleans on July 25.

Last month alone, Obama spent nearly $59 million through his main campaign account — $10 million more than he raised, financial reports filed late Monday afternoon show. The cost of his campaign so far: more than $325 million, not counting spending by the the Democratic Party committees aiding his re-election.

By contrast, President Bush had spent $205.4 million to retain the White House at this point in the 2004 election.

The Democratic National Committee also stepped up its spending on the president's behalf last month, burning through $32 million — more than double what the national party spent a month earlier, as it undertook fresh rounds of polling and advertising to help Obama.

The president's new investments included additional staffers. He employed 853 people in July, up from 779 a month earlier, a USA TODAY analysis shows. Romney had 326 staffers on his payroll last month, up from 272 in June.

Obama pumped more than $48 million into advertising last month, more than twice what Romney spent.

The Romney campaign has been on a winning streak when it comes to fundraising, besting Obama and Democrats for three straight months. Romney and his fundraising operation reported collecting $101 million in July, outgunning Obama and his allies by $25 million.

Since then, the Romney camp said it has raised $10.2 million online in the week after Romney's Aug. 11 announcement of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate.

Overall, Romney has spent $165.3 million through his main campaign account since the beginning of last year, but he must wait until after he is formally nominated at next week's Republican National Convention in Tampa to draw on his substantial general-election funds. In the interim, he has been helped by super PACs and other Republican-aligned independent groups, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts, but are barred from coordinating their activities with candidates.

The candidates and super PACs aiding them were required to report details of their July fundraising before midnight Monday.

Obama's spending has put increased pressure on his campaign to raise money quickly. In an e-mail to supporters last week, he implored them to give as little as $3 each, saying he was being outspent by Republicans on the airwaves by a 2-to-1 ratio in Iowa. Next week, the hunt for cash heads to Europe where actor George Clooney is scheduled to headline an Obama fundraiser in Geneva.

Other reports filed late Monday highlight the role that a handful of wealthy donors, corporations and unions play in bankrolling super PACs:

•A pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, reported raising almost $7.5 million in July. The largest donor was Texas homebuilder Bob Perry, who donated $2 million and has given $7 million total. Another $1 million came from the Renco Group, which includes AM General, maker of the military's Humvee vehicle.

Four members of the Lindner family of Cincinnati donated a combined $500,000, while three companies affiliated with the owners of The Villages retirement community in Florida donated a total of $200,000.

•American Crossroads, a Republican-aligned super PAC, raised $7.1 million in July. Texan Robert Rowling was the biggest donor, giving $2 million personally and through his company, TRT Holdings, which owns Gold's Gym International and the Omni Hotel chain.

•Priorities USA Action, a super PAC aiding Obama, lagged behind Republican groups. It raised $4.8 million in July. Donors included Philadelphia real-estate developer Mel Heifetz, who gave $1 million, and New York-based architect Jon Stryker, who contributed $750,000.

•PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who spent heavily to advance Texas GOP Ron Paul's president campaign, donated $1 million in July to Club for Growth Action, which has backed upstart, anti-tax candidates in GOP primaries for Congress.

•Two labor unions donated heavily last month to a super PAC working to help Democrats gain seats in the U.S. House. The House Majority PAC took in more than $760,000 in July. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers was the largest donor, emerged as the biggest donor to the group, giving $350,000. The International Association of Firefighters gave $250,000.

•Ending Spending Action Fund, a super PAC created by T.D. Ameritrade founder J. Joe Ricketts reported collecting nearly $400,000 last month, most of which came from Ricketts. Ricketts, a billionaire whose family owns the Chicago Cubs baseball team, was at the center of controversy earlier this year when news broke that his political operation was weighing anti-Obama ads that linked the president to the incendiary remarks of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Ricketts said he rejected the proposal.

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In Cash Push, 2 Campaigns Likely to Reject Public Funds

Aides and leading donors to Mitt Romney are preparing a major expansion of the campaign’s fund-raising efforts to prepare for a general election contest against President Obama, with the goal of raising up to $600 million, according to several people involved in the discussions.

Republican-leaning outside groups and Democratic-leaning unions are planning to spend hundreds of millions more.

And Mr. Obama, who raised $750 million in 2008, is likely to meet or exceed that this year, according to people involved in his fund-raising operation.

Those goals make it virtually certain that neither party’s nominee will accept public funds for the general election or the spending limits that come with them — the likely death knell for a cornerstone of the post-Watergate campaign finance reforms intended to limit the influence of money in federal elections.

Mr. Obama opted out of the public financing program in 2008, breaking a campaign pledge, and went on to outspend the Republican nominee, John McCain, by four to one.

“This is going to be the most moneyed election in the history of the United States,” said Bob Edgar, the president of Common Cause, a group that favors greater restrictions on campaign spending. Mr. Edgar, a former congressman who was among the Democratic “Watergate babies” elected in the wake of the scandal, added, “There is a sense of coming full circle, of forgetting our history — the reason we installed a system for financing campaigns that didn’t rely on corporate or wealthy money.”

Mr. Obama has already held over a hundred major fund-raisers for his campaign, jointly raising large amounts with the Democratic National Committee, and Mr. Romney is moving quickly to catch up. His campaign is planning dozens of fund-raisers through the end of June, high-dollar events that will feature Mr. Romney as well as the campaign’s top allies and other elected officials.

The campaign is setting a goal of raising at least $1 million for most events featuring Mr. Romney personally.

Those efforts will be aided by a new joint fund-raising agreement with the Republican National Committee that allows Mr. Romney to command far larger checks than he has during the primaries, when his campaign was limited to increments of $2,500 or less. Under the agreement, guests at major Romney events will be able to write checks as large as $75,000 to a “Romney Victory” committee.

About half of that sum would go to Mr. Romney’s campaign or the Republican committee, mimicking the arrangement under which Mr. Obama, as an incumbent, has been raising money since last spring for his campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The remainder will be split among Republican state parties in Massachusetts, Idaho, Oklahoma and Vermont — where party leaders are deemed loyal to Mr. Romney — and later re-allocated to the most critical battleground states.

“It’s going to ramp up dramatically,” said Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets and one of Mr. Romney’s national finance co-chairmen. “The response I’ve been getting, of people willing to max out on the victory side, has been very very good, very enthusiastic.”

Restore Our Future, the “super PAC” whose millions of dollars in negative advertising helped bury Mr. Romney’s Republican rivals, will also shift its focus to the general election, officials familiar with its plans said. The group, which raised more than $43 million through the end of February, is hoping to reach the $100 million mark by the end of the cycle.

The super PAC will also have help from Mr. Romney’s allies and backers: Jim Talent, the former United States senator and a key surrogate for Mr. Romney during the primaries, appeared at a Restore Our Future briefing for donors in New York on Wednesday.

And people involved with the group’s fund-raising have in recent days approached Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino owner whose family contributed over $16 million to a rival super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich, to consider contributing to Restore Our Future. They have also approached Charles and David Koch, the wealthy conservative businessmen who founded Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group, according to two people with knowledge of the conversations.

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Beyond Democrat and Republican: A Closer Look at Third-Party Campaigns (ContributorNetwork)

There has been plenty of recent speculation in the media about a possible third-party run for president by current Republican candidate Ron Paul. Whether Paul, or any other candidate, will make a third-party play against President Barack Obama and the Republican nominee this November remains to be seen. In the meantime let's look at some of the more creditable third-party presidential runs of the past one hundred years:

* Theodore Roosevelt (1912) -- A century ago the old "Bull Moose" founded the Progressive Party after a rift with his hand-picked Republican successor William Howard Taft. Roosevelt was upset with Taft for not continuing his progressive platform after he had left office. Roosevelt was so fired up that the former president decided to enter the 1912 race as the candidate for the new Progressive Party. Predictably Roosevelt split the vote and handed the election to Woodrow Wilson. Still, TR's 27 percent of the popular vote remains the high-water mark for third-party candidates still today.

* Strom Thurman (1948) -- Aside from being considered by many historians as the biggest upset in presidential election history -- incumbent Democrat Harry S. Truman beat Republican challenger Thomas Dewey -- this election was famous for Thurman's State's Rights (or Dixiecrat) Party. The Dixiecrats were white Southern Democrats who deplored the moves that the Truman Administration were making toward desegregating the South. They formed their own party and chose Thurman to run against Truman and Dewey. Thurman won four Southern states and 39 electoral votes and managed to get 2.4 percent of the popular vote.

* Ross Perot (1992) -- The Texas pro-business billionaire decided to throw his hat into the ring as an Independent candidate in the 1992 election. Concerns about the state of the economy, and a general distrust-as always-of Washington insiders, helped fuel a surge of support for his candidacy. In May, six months before the election, Perot was actually polling ahead of the incumbent Republican George Bush and Democratic challenger Bill Clinton. In the end Perot captured nearly 20 million votes and almost 19 percent of the electorate.

* Ralph Nader (2000) -- This was Nader's third run for president and, while his ultimate vote count was modest (about 2.8 million total votes and 2.73 percent of the electorate) his presence on the ballot might have proven to be monumental. That's because Nader took part in one of the closest presidential elections in U.S. history between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush. Many have suggested that, had Nader not been in the race. Gore, who actually won the popular vote, would have captured enough electoral votes to win the White House.

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Democrats launch campaigns by blowing up GOP Medicare plan - Washington Post

Democratic House candidates across the country are signaling a desire to make the GOP’s plan for Medicare reform a real issue — early and often — in the 2012 election.

From California to New Hampshire, Democrats are launching their campaigns with a united message on Medicare and hoping it will pay off next year.

That message? “Your Republican member of Congress voted to end Medicare as we know it, and it’s time for someone new.”

In Colorado, state Sen. Brandon Shaffer (D) launched his campaign against freshman Rep. Cory Gardner (R) this week by laying into Gardner for his vote in favor of the House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget that would turn Medicare into a voucher program.

Shaffer made the attack the keynote of his announcement, saying Gardner “just gutted Medicare with his vote on the Ryan budget.”

Other Democratic candidates who have made the Medicare plan a key part of their rollouts include activist Ann McLane Kuster, a repeat challenger to Rep. Charlie Bass (R-N.H.); Colorado state Rep. Sal Pace, who faces Rep. Scott Tipton (R); Dr. Ami Bera, who is running against Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) for the second straight cycle; Illinois state Sen. Dave Koehler, who is challenging Rep. Bobby Schilling (R); and Wisconsin state Sen. Pat Kreitlow, who is running against Rep. Sean Duffy (R).

Kuster railed against Bass’s vote in an op-ed, Bera held a town hall devoted to the GOP’s Medicare plan, and the rest all mentioned Medicare as a motivating factor for their campaigns.

The man who got the ball rolling, of course, was businessman Rob Zerban, who took the fight directly to the man responsible for the Medicare proposal, Ryan. Zerban’s challenge to Ryan instantly became a cause celebre for national Democrats earlier this year when it began to look like the GOP’s Medicare proposal would be a real liability.

Ryan, despite coming from a swing district, is a second- or third-tier target for Democrats. The others, though, are all among the most targeted Republicans on the map.

Medicare continues to poll well as an issue for Democrats – a recent Bloomberg poll showed that 57 percent think they would be worse off under Ryan’s plan, while just 34 percent think they would be better off – so it’s no surprise that they keep going back to the well.

Democrats have won a special election in upstate New York where the Medicare proposal was cited as the main reason for the upset, and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (N.Y.) stated publicly that the GOP’s Medicare proposal gave him new hope for winning back the House in 2012.

The question for Democrats is whether the issue is as relevant in November 2012 as it is in July 2011.

People tend to be pretty passionate about entitlement programs, and Democrats are banking on them continuing to be strongly against the GOP plan next year.

At the same time, when Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (D-N.Y.) scandal broke, much of the Democrats’ messaging momentum on Medicare was thwarted. And, with President Obama floating the possibility of cuts to Medicare in a grand bargain on the debt ceiling there is some concern in Democratic strategist circles that the party will lose its political high ground on the issue.

Republicans, for their part, have struggled to justify the vote, and are hoping the issue doesn’t ruin their 2012 election prospects in the same way the Democratic health care bill swamped that party’s 2010 efforts.

There is anecdotal evidence that people don’t quite know what to think about Medicare. Results of a focus group of independents released today by Resurgent Republic, a conglomerate of GOP consultants and pollsters, shows that they are strikingly unfamiliar with the the Republican budget plan.

Of course, what they do know about the plan makes them not like it, and explaining the finer points is difficult to do. Democrats have a much simpler message to sell, and they are — quite literally — running with it. Look for them to keep running with it until they have a good reason not to or it stops paying dividends.

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Fake Democrats raise few funds for recall primary campaigns - Wausau Daily Herald

MADISON -- Fake Democratic candidates running in recall elections in order to give Republican incumbents more time to campaign have raised almost no money for the effort, reports filed with the state showed Wednesday.

The candidates, prompted by the state Republican Party, ran simply to force a primary and thereby delay the general election by a month in hopes of giving GOP incumbents more time to campaign.

Six Democratic primary elections are scheduled for Tuesday, with the winners facing the targeted Republican incumbents Aug. 9.

Five of the six fake Democrats whose reports were available Wednesday raised just $4,200 -- with nearly all the money coming from the Republican Party to help pay for copies and postage related to their filing as candidates.

A report for the sixth fake Democrat, James Smith of La Crosse, was not posted on the Government Accountability Board website by midday Wednesday.

While the protest candidates lie low, the legitimate Republicans and Democrats are raising tons of cash.

The six Democratic candidates combined have raised more than $1.5 million and had nearly $1 million in cash on hand. The Republican incumbents collectively raised about $2.4 million and had about $893,000 in cash on hand.

Four of the Republican incumbents raised more than their Democratic challengers, but two had less cash on hand entering the final weeks of the campaign.

The reports submitted Tuesday to the Government Accountability Board show incumbent Sens. Rob Cowles of Green Bay and Luther Olsen of Ripon face the biggest financial challenges.

In the 10th District, Olsen raised $107,000, compared with $227,000 for Democratic challenger state Rep. Fred Clark of Baraboo. Clark had $163,000 in cash on hand, compared with just $71,000 for Olsen.

In the 2nd District, Cowles raised $101,000, compared with $177,000 for Democratic opponent Nancy Nusbaum. She had $134,000 in cash on hand, and he had just $62,000.

Democrats need to win three seats to gain majority control in the Senate, giving them the power to block the Republican agenda. Three Democratic state senators also face recall elections. Their latest financial disclosure reports are due Monday.

Other Republicans facing recall elections are Sens. Alberta Darling of River Hills, Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac, Dan Kapanke of La Crosse and Sheila Harsdorf of River Falls.

In the 10th District, fake Democrat and hardware store owner Isaac Weix raised just $450 beyond a $750 in-kind contribution from the state Republican Party. He faces Democrat Shelly Moore in Tuesday's primary, with the winner moving on to face Harsdorf.

Four other fake Democrats -- Otto Junkermann, Gladys Huber, Rol Church and John Buckstaff-- all reported just a $750 contribution from the state Republican Party with no other
money raised or spent.

Junkermann faces Nusbaum on Tuesday, with the winner moving on to face Cowles. Huber is running in the 8th District against state Rep. Sandy Pasch, with the winner moving on to face Darling.

Church is running against Rep. Fred Clark, with the winner moving on to face Olsen. Buckstaff faces Democrat Jessica King on Tuesday with
the winner taking on Hopper.

The other protest candidate, Smith, is running against Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Shilling, with the winner facing Kapanke.

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