The Money Primary

I'm going to crawl out on a lonely limb here.

On one level it's impressive that Hillary Clinton raised $26 million in the last three months, shattering the previous record, and equally impressive that Mitt Romney raised $20 million.

Journalists have become increasingly obsessive about tracking these numbers because, 10 months before anyone actually gets to vote, it's a way of keeping score. And obviously the ability to rake in big bucks indicates that the candidate has a certain degree of support and the organizational muscle to build a network of donors.

But I think it's an overrated indicator. I lost track of how many big-name political journalists told me in late 2003 that Howard Dean was nearly unstoppable for the nomination because he was the Democrats' leading fundraiser. But his $40 million -- some of which had been frittered away earlier -- didn't do him much good once he got to the Iowa caucuses. All the money in the world doesn't help a candidate who can't close the sale.

I got bleary-eyed in 1996, reading all the glowing pieces about how strong a candidate Phil Gramm was because he was raising truckloads of money. Gramm never made it to New Hampshire. The donors might have been buying, but the voters weren't.

In Hillary's case, one of her biggest liabilities, in my view, is that she's seen as the safe, cautious candidate of the Democratic establishment. Doesn't the fact that she (with some help from Bill) has amassed a small Fort Knox reinforce that image?

The total amassed by Romney may be more noteworthy, since he's never been a national figure nor married to a president. But maybe he just knows a lot of rich guys in Utah. The ex-governor is, for the moment, languishing in the polls.

I do wonder why John McCain, considered the GOP front-runner by everyone three months ago, was able to raise "only" $12.5 million, behind even the late-starting Rudy Giuliani's $15 million. (John Edwards, currently unemployed, pulled in $14 million.) Does that suggest an inherent weakness in McCain's candidacy? At the very least, it certainly suggests that the Republican Party isn't closing ranks behind him.

It used to be that candidates had to raise large sums (at least enough to get federal matching funds, which are now regarded as passe) to finance enough television advertising to be competitive. But at this stage, it's really about establishing credibility--with potential donors, to be sure, but above all with the media. (That's why they all crashed fundraisers before the March 31 deadline to pump up their totals.) And said media ought to keep in mind, after the Dean and Gramm flameouts, that raising a small fortune is only one test of a candidate.

Some excerpts from the MSM coverage, starting with the LAT:

"Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney emerged as the surprise Republican fund-raising leader today, disclosing he amassed $23 million in the first three months of the year."

Or about 20 mil if you discount the 2-1/2 million bucks he loaned himself. "Despite winning endorsements of many Republican leaders, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) faltered in the money race, disclosing that he had raised $12.5 million in the first quarter, slightly more than half of Romney's unexpected total.