Crooks and Nannies

Three new Republican websites have sprung up and are vying with the successful Democratic or liberal sites in gathering money for the candidates, seeking to balance out the Democrats enormous advantage in raising money online.  Trust the Republicans to shoot themselves in the foot again, however.  The general counsel for one of these groups is also the top lawyer for Rudy Giuliani’s campaign.  That might be okay if and when he becomes the eventual nominee, but for the moment, it requires donors to all the other Presidential candidates to trust his integrity.  Rudy Giuliani announced his most recent divorce at a press conference before telling his wife; his second police chief was formerly his driver, and was discovered to have been physically abusive and have mob ties; Giuliani keeps on the payroll at his consulting firm a Catholic priest fired by his diocese for child molestation (hands up if you want to be advised by that guy); and the man Giuliani chose to run his operations throughout the South was a coke fiend.  But you can safely give to Rightroots because the integrity of the whole Giuliani team is above reproach...and moving right along to ridicule.

PS:  Sorry for my absence.  I followed suit with the President and the legislature...of both America and Iraq...in taking a good part of August off.

Fred Thompson will report an anemic $3 million raised in June, his first month of fundraising.  This is far below his own (low) goal of $5 million, and, given the support from the financial networks of fellow Tennesseeans Lamar Alexander and Bill Frist, suggests that Thompson himself expended absolutely no effort towards raising money.  This lack of effort, of course, is Thompson's characteristic behavior.  It comes as no surprise from a man who earned the reputation as the laziest man in the United States Senate, whose own supporters say that his casualness and relative disinterest towards becoming President is a selling point

In a way, that makes sense.  For people who think that the military and national security and terror and natural disaster crises America may face are relatively insignificant, and that he governs best who governs least, well, no person running is better suited to doing little or nothing as President.  Remember, Fred Thompson answers the documented fact that he spent 18 years as a lobbyist by just saying he didn’t do any lobbying.

Note that he didn’t deny getting paid to be a lobbyist—just that he never actually did the job.  I suspect his clients would all agree he wasn’t much of a lobbyist.

And his acting career is also laughable for his lack of effort and accomplishment; after a dubious career as a lawyer and government official, he has played, you guessed it, lawyers and government officials.  He was the least hard-working man in show business.

Congress is poised to pass some ethics reform measures, though they have already substantially weakened the measures.  Campaign contributions bundled together by lobbyists have to be reported every six months, not every three, and only if the amount totals over $15,000 per six month period, and not $5,000 as previously proposed.

Also, the reports would be filed by lawmakers, not lobbyists.  But placing the obligation to report on the legislators is to invite dishonesty.  The advantage to both sides is that if lawmakers don’t “notice” that a stack of fat envelopes all were handed to him by a lobbyist, well, then, no harm done, right?  An "honest" mistake measured against a potential scandal would be a political no-brainer for any office-holder.  Lobbyists could not credibly pretend to an error on such a matter.  Lobbyists argued they shouldn’t be legally required to be honest because the proposal would be a bookkeeping nightmare.  Now, that could only be true if the lobbyist regularly raised $15+ grand for dozens and dozens of Congressmen and Senators.  And if that’s so, the need for accurate reporting is far more urgent than anyone imagined.

Beyond that, to believe it would be an undue burden on lobbyists is to believe that lobbyists do not keep track of precisely how much money they have raised for various members of Congress, a speculation I find absolutely unimaginable.  As it stands, it just means printing off a copy of a computer file.  I know how strenuous clicking two or even three buttons can be.  But the lobbyists should still have to struggle right through it.

For the first time in living memory, the Democratic political committees are outraising the Republican ones.  The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are crushing the RSCC and the RCCC, both in funds raised and cash on hand.  And, for Republicans in Congress, it gets worse, while overall fundraising by the campaign committees is almost even, that’s because Republican National Committee continues to maintain its historic fundraising edge over the DNC (though by one of the smallest margins in its history).  The DNC and RNC money, however, gets eaten up almost entirely by the candidate at the top of the ticket in Presidential years, which means that the Republican candidates for lower offices will have far less financial help than they had in 2006, when they got crushed by poorly-financed Democrats.  The anemic fundraising also appears to have a higher than usual number of Republican incumbents considering retirement rather than face a difficult campaign season and possible defeat, while recruitment of quality candidates by Republicans has so far been embarrassingly poor.  (Democrats haven’t been overly successful in enlisting top candidates either, however, so it may simply be that the campaign season is young.)

There is also the possibility that a popular Democratic candidate for President could be so extraordinarily well-financed that he can lock in an electoral victory early enough to advertise heavily in solidly Republican states, in an attempt at best to run up the score and at worst to give competitive Democrats in Republican states a better chance of winning House and Senate seats, and legislative majorities in the states.  At the moment Democrats have more than $120 million more in cash on hand than the Republicans; the Democrats have yet one more edge on the Democrats—not only are they raising funds more successfully, but they’re spending money more frugally.  Since the year began, the Democrats have spent less than $70 million, while the Republicans have spent over $100 million.  At this time, Democrats appear to be more adept than Republicans--the party of business--at every level of money management.

Virginia Republican Senator John Warner (and ex-Elizabeth Taylor husband) looks very likely to retire:  He raised $71,000 in the second quarter, after raising only $500 in the first.  Let us pause in wonder at that $500 figure.  For a prominent US Senator to raise so little, you would think he was working the phones non-stop telling people not to give him money.  While if Warner decides to run for re-election, he would be unlikely to face a serious opponent, an unserious opponent might be able to gain ground on him if he doesn’t step up his fundraising.  If the Senator does not run, this seat has got to be regarded as a likely Democratic pick-up.

Many years back, a newspaper article called the Senator the dumbest man in the United States Senate.  Warner, insulted, wanted to sue, and was warned that was a bad idea:  What if the reporter was able to prove it?  It’s been many years, of course, since anyone called him the dumbest man in the Senate.  Which either means he’s gotten a whole lot smarter, or the Senate has gotten a whole lot dumber.

It could be either one, but I know which way I’d bet it.

Newspapers are full of stories writing about how Senator McCain is spending money as fast as he can take it in, but according to Politico, that’s a problem that afflicts the entire Republican field.  McCain’s dire financial straits are well-established, but he is trying to cut back on expenses, streamlining his campaign so he can stay in for the duration.  However, it turns out both Romney and Giuliani’s  campaigns are also flirting with financial ruin, and they are continuing to court it.  Romney’s fundraising dropped by a third in the second quarter, a precipitous decline masked in part by his loaning his campaign $6.5 million. 

Romney’s spending has, if anything, increased:  He spent $4 million on advertising in the second quarter, along with over $14 million on his campaign.  This means, not counting his $6.5 million “loan” (one which seems incredibly unlikely to be repaid, short of Romney being elected President) Romney lost millions in the second quarter.  If his fundraising considers to decline by a third a quarter, Romney will be forced to almost entirely self-finance his candidacy, or drop out, before the year is finished. 

It also creates a new context to Romney’s sons’ wholehearted support for his Presidential campaign.  If Romney fails to be elected, a large portion of their potential inheritance will be lost forever.  That’s one way to get your children to feel a stake in your campaign.

Giuliani seems all right for now.  He raised $17 million, and has $18 million in cash on hand.  However, he spend $11 million on his campaign apparatus this quarter (not including advertising), and is continuing to hire staffers.  He raised $16.7 million in the first quarter, but he did that in roughly six weeks.  If $17 million turns out to be his best quarter, and he keeps hiring people on, then he’s likely to begin to burn through more money than he raises in the third quarter. 

If Romney and Giuliani have to cut back, they could be finished.  Romney’s only rationale was his impressive fundraising ability, which seems to have been exaggerated.  And unlike McCain, Romney and Giuliani need hordes of staffers.  Senator McCain can look Presidential walking down the street alone.  Former Mayor Giuliani and former Governor Romney need staffers and hangers-on and body men to look like anything more than bureaucrats.

There's an interesting piece by A. B. Stoddard in The Hill's Pundits Blog today.  She points out that McCain's fundraising problems are counter to all logic.  The guy's the ranking Republican on Commerce and the Armed Forces committees.  This means he should be the King Kong of fundraisers, and suggests he isn't solely because he's just too damned honorable.  (She does contrast McCain with Obama, who is also alleged to be telling uncomfortable truths to his donors, but this isn't an entirely fair comparison because, well, Democrats are much more comfortable betraying their economic interests.  Take Hollywood:  How many movie stars campaign for tax cuts?)

With McCain's positions on campaign finance, immigration, and the Iraq war challenging the Republican orthodoxy, and his contempt for most defense contractors as profiteers who often endanger the troops to pad their profit margin, it would be a wonder that the Republicans haven't entirely chased him out of the race with pitchforks and burning torches like some benighted, misunderstood monster. 

Then again, the Republican front-runner is Rudy Giuliani:  A pro-choice, pro-gun control ex-mayor who's hated and despised by New Yorkers, the people who know him best, and widely derided as an incompetent on issues of national security, the raison d'etre of his campaign.  From that point of view, John McCain, a candidate who's tough and honest, intolerant of the corruption poisoning our political system, and who favors immigration for pretty much anyone who's willing to work hard to contribute to America:  What's not to like?  The fact that fatcat donors don't rush to give him money just seems like another point in his favor.