This Is Why I'm Hot!...or Dialing for Dollars Redux

"I'm hot 'cause I'm fly!
You ain't 'cause you not!
This is why,
This is why,
This is why I'm hot!"
(lyrics by Mims)

I guess somewhere out there some people drew a collective gasp when Barak Obama announced that he'd raised $25M in the first quarter of 2007 for the presidential campaign.

Hillary Clinton was First Lady for eight years and a United States Senator from New York for six years, and she is so instantly recognizable, she is simply Hillary all over the world. But at the end of the day, a comparative newcomer, the Senator from Illinois, has virtually tied Hillary in fundraising ability. It was a foregone conclusion among many of the party regulars and the pundits that the nomination was hers. The aspirations of her challengers on the Democratic side were quixotic at best. What Barak Obama has done is upended those assertions and changed the equation considerably. This is not going to be an annointing.

The rules of the game prescribe a limit on individual contributions of $2,300, for the primaries and another $2,300, for the general election. A candidate can get $4,600 up front. This inflates the total contributions. But if they don't make it to the general election, they'll have to give the money back. Obama has received mostly smaller contributions, eschewing those from lobbyists and PACs.He raised nearly $7M from the internet. While Senator Clinton has the very formidable resource of her husband to help her, and he does, and while she has a much larger pool of contributors from which to draw, the best she could do in this first quarter was stay a little better than even with $26 M. In fact, right now, Senator Obama has about $23M to spend on the primaries, compared to $20M for Senator Clinton. (She does have access to $10M from her Senate campaign.)

From this point on, things will get rougher and meaner. Not just the public maneuverings. Behind the scenes, the pressure on lesser known candidates to drop out will increase. Political leaders and party regulars in all the 50 states are jockying for positions, especially those with early primaries. Hillary, Rudy, and John McCain are leading in some polls, but it's mostly based on name recognition. The game plan for all the candidates now, is to get your opponent to spend more money than he planned on spending, to spend it unwisely, and certainly to spend more money then you! Keep the other guys off balance and off message, distracted by phony issues, and always on the defensive.

An important challenge for the presidential candidates will be to nail down state organizations and prepare for the primary season. There will be a critical, internal struggle going on in all the key primary states for control over the state party machinery, because those are the people who run the primary elections in their respective states. That is why, for example, endorsements from key state officials are important. The Clinton campaign is definitely in a "take no prisoners" mode. They are girded for battle.

There's very little Barak Obama can do about world events upstaging him, as the recent release of the British hostages from Iran might have done. We'll have to see whether or not he can maintain momentum in the face of the awesome, relentless determination of both Bill and Hillary. I cannot help but believe that at least part of Obama's attraction to many voters is because there is something about Barak Obama that is more thoughtful than calculating. And conversely, there is something about Hillary that seems more calculating than thoughtful. The proverbial battle for the White House is about to get a lot more interesting and a lot rougher.

(Copyright, 2007)