The Money Primary

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 3, 2007 7:30 AM

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.

"That placed McCain, the perceived front-runner, third in early fund-raising among Republicans, after Romney and former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who disclosed that he had raised $15 million. McCain's campaign indicated today it was restructuring its fund-raising operation."

NYT: "Mitt Romney's presidential campaign said Monday that it had raised $20 million in the first quarter, tapping two distant but rich networks -- Wall Street and the Mormon Church -- to easily outpace his better-known Republican primary rivals.

"Senator John McCain, the Arizona lawmaker once considered the front-runner, brought in $12.5 million, his campaign said. It was an unexpected shortfall that could hamper his momentum, and his campaign acknowledged disappointment . . .

"Although Mr. Romney's membership in the Mormon church has often been discussed as a potential political liability, he has taken deliberate steps to turn his affiliation with the church into a fund-raising asset."

So Romney now has momentum--even though not one more voter has decided to vote for him than was the case yesterday.

Chicago Trib: "While the amounts are stunning by historical standards, McCain's campaign manager acknowledged it was a less-than-impressive showing for the Vietnam War hero, who for much of last year was seen as the strongest contender to win the 2008 Republican nomination for president . . . McCain has never liked fundraising, and aides said he devoted much of the first quarter to working on the Iraq war issue in the Senate."

Politico: "The first-quarter presidential fundraising reports offer several insights into the race, but perhaps the most intriguing are: John McCain is faltering as the perceived Republican front-runner, and Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign isn't the juggernaut that her Democratic opponents feared . . .

"McCain's stumble comes at a treacherous time because he has slipped in the polls as his courtship of his party's conservative base appears to have stalled. He had recruited the lion's share of Bush's big-name fundraisers, but his risk now is that activists and donors will throw their support behind one of his better-financed rivals.

"On the Democratic side, Clinton also suffered some dents in her armor.

"Her campaign news release noted that 50,000 donors had given to her campaign; Obama's Web site already touts the fact that more than 83,000 donors have given to him.

"The Clinton camp highlighted the $4 million she raised on the Internet, but that number seemed less impressive when Edwards reported that of the $14 million he has raised, more than $3 million of it came in online."

National Review's Jim Geraghty gives Clinton a mixed review:

"Team Hillary might be banging their heads against the wall, asking what they need to do to get some impressive press coverage; they smash the all-time fundraising record and yet they're still poked for 'not meeting expectations.' On the other hand, when $10 million comes from the Senate run, the $26 million looks milder, and we're looking at what has to be the biggest and most impressive fundraising machine in either party in American history. And the Democratic field seems, so far, much more unified around their big three than on the GOP side."

"Yes, her first quarter is big," says Andrew Sullivan. "But she's the obvious front-runner, her husband is the last Democratic president and he's fundraising for her as if he's trying to settle another sexual harassment suit."

Lots of chatter about former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd breaking with the president. At Daily Kos, McJoan notes that Dowd's son is in the military and expects to be deployed to Iraq:

"Funny how perpectives change when it's your own kid's life on the line. Dowd's disavowal of Bush is likely to strike many as just so much political opportunism--seeing the national tide turning against not only Bush but the kind of vicious, hyperpartisan politics that Dowd helped engineer to get Bush into office, he's looking at how to save his own political skin and future prospects.

"Perhaps so, but he's burning a lot of bridges to do so and this very public break with this president is significant. What's more, regardless of motive, Dowd's right. Our leaders do have to understand what the American people want. And that's getting us out of Iraq, the sooner the better."

Time's Jay Carney is more sympathetic:

"What's striking about Dowd's explanation is the sense of responsibility that permeates it. He doesn't just think Bush has made mistakes; he's speaking out as an act of atonement -- or, as he puts it, 'to restore balance when things didn't turn out they way they should have.' "

But Dick Polman is suspicious:

"What are we really supposed to think of this guy? Could it be that his renunciation of Bush seems a tad opportunistic? Is it out of line to suggest that this pollster, even while giving voice to his sincere disappointment in Bush, is also distancing himself publicly in order to salvage his own reputation and ensure that he works in the future? . . .

"What Dowd didn't say, and what the story didn't say, was that he was arguably the prime architect of the Bush strategy that he is now denouncing. Generally, when ex-aides trash a president, it's because that president failed to heed their advice ('if he had only listened to me'); here, we seem to have the opposite. Dowd is trashing Bush in part because he did heed Dowd's advice."

At HuffPost, Parachutec sounds downright mad:

"Not so fast. You can't say you want to 'restore balance' and say you want all politcal conflict to go away while you go on walkabout for some quality time with your mid-life existential crisis. Your psychodramas helped to [soil] the bed, now get over yourself and join the fight - yes, the fight - to undo what you've done . . . Grow up and take some responsibility, and stop pretending nice rhetoric and kumbayah will make anything right again. It won't . . .

"The people you joined up with have had the very agenda you abetted since at least the days of Nixon, and unless we rid our public life of them, they'll be back again. You were an insider. Start talking about what you know. Grab your knife and start the stabbing. That's how you can restore some balance."

Actually, Dowd is a former Democrat, so I don't think you can blame him for Tricky Dick.

Bill Kristol says the stakes in Washington are even higher than Bush may grasp:

"Surely President Bush must realize that the Democratic Congress is not merely struggling with him over policy, or jousting for political advantage. The Democrats in Congress are trying to destroy his presidency. They are trying to cripple his ability to govern for the rest of his term. And they are not far from succeeding. Will Bush fight back?"

And the Republican Congress, which impeached Bill Clinton for lying about an affair, wasn't trying to destroy him?

"This does not mean defending everything his administration has done indiscriminately, of course. It may be, for example, that Attorney General Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General McNulty should go. Then get rid of them now. Appoint strong conservatives to replace them. And insist on their prompt confirmation . . .

"Here's a small but revealing example of the current situation. Last week, the White House withdrew the nomination of St. Louis businessman and philanthropist Sam Fox to be ambassador to Belgium after John Kerry threw a fit about Fox's having given money in 2004 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Kerry tried to insist that Fox apologize for his donation. Fox, a man of stature and dignity, refused to pretend to be contrite. Kerry bludgeoned Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democrats into opposing Fox--which was not so easy, as Fox had wide and bipartisan support in Missouri and beyond. But the White House did nothing, and Democrats fell into line behind Kerry."

Kos is unhappy with Obama, based on this news account:

" If President Bush vetoes an Iraq war spending bill as promised, Congress quickly will provide the money without the withdrawal timeline the White House objects to because no lawmaker 'wants to play chicken with our troops,' Sen. Barack Obama said Sunday.

"What a ridiculous thing to say. Not only is it bad policy, not only is it bad politics, it's also a terrible negotiating approach . . . Obama just surrendered to Bush."

This post by Salon Editor Joan Walsh is an important one. It follows the decision by blogger Kathy Sierra to temporarily suspend her site because of sexually explicit venom and death threats. "I do not want to be part of a culture--the Blogosphere--where this is considered acceptable," Sierra writes. Here's Walsh:

"Is there really any doubt that women writing on the Web are subject to more abuse than men, simply because they're women? Really? I've been following the Kathy Sierra blog storm, thinking I had nothing new to say, but the continued insistence that Sierra, and those who defend her, are somehow overreacting, or charging sexism where none exists, makes it hard for a mouthy woman to stay silent.

"I say this as a mouthy woman who has tried for a long time to pretend otherwise: that Web misogyny isn't especially rampant -- but even if it is, it has no effect on me, or any other strong, sane woman doing her job. But I wasn't being honest. My own reactions and those of others to the Sierra mess served to wrestle the truth out of me, and it wasn't what I hoped . . .

"And on and on it goes: Is Sierra another woman silenced by vicious online sexism, or just a wuss? Were the threats of violence real? Or is she the real bully, organizing a 'lynch mob' to win her blogosphere battle?

"I avoided writing about the mess for a day or two because I had mixed feelings about it. Ever since Salon automated its letters, it's been hard to ignore that the criticisms of women writers are much more brutal and vicious than those about men -- sometimes nakedly sexist, sometimes less obviously so; sometimes sexually and/or personally degrading. But I've never admitted the toll our letters can sometimes take on women writers at Salon, myself included, because admitting it would be giving misogynist losers -- and these are the posters I'm talking about -- power . . .

"Once I joined Salon I started receiving the creepiest personal e-mails about my work. Anything I wrote that vaguely defended President Clinton or criticized his attackers, in particular, would get me a torrent of badly spelled e-mail, often from Free Republic readers and posters. There were themes: A significant subset tended to depict me in a Monica Lewinsky role, often graphically . . .

"There were plenty of insults, and most of them had to do with us as women -- as mothers, as sexual objects, as writers, as professional women in the world. To boil it down, we're wrinkly old hags . . . we're narcissists and bad mothers, and worst of all, for writers, we're really bad writers, and terribly stupid. But mostly we're just bad women. Bad, bad women. And did I mention ugly and wrinkly?"