The top Republican presidential candidates spent more than their Democratic counterparts in the first six months of the year, even though the Republican contenders raised less money, the latest campaign-finance reports show.
Republicans Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain outspent Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards by more than $20 million, a USA TODAY analysis found. The three Republicans lag the top Democrats in total receipts by $40 million and have $61 million less in the bank.
Just moments before he arrived, Senator Barack Obama had said goodbye to a less exclusive crowd of 10,000 that had gathered to hear him speak across the bay in Oakland. They paid nothing to hear him, but spent $40,000 on Obama T-shirts, baseball caps, buttons and other knickknacks. And the Obama campaign registered each of the purchasers as one of the record 258,000 contributors it signed up in the first six months of the year.
Since he got into the race, Mr. Obama has hopscotched from big-ticket to big-crowd events across the country, trying to turn the early excitement about his candidacy into campaign cash and a national political organization.
Like other candidates, he has worked hard to cultivate a network of bundlers, who can solicit the checks from individual donors for the legal maximum of $2,300 that are the mainstay of any major campaign. But to capitalize on his celebrity, Mr. Obama’s campaign has also employed novel tactics — like counting sales of $5 speech tickets or $4.50 Obama key chains as individual contributions — to pump up his numbers and transform grass-roots enthusiasm into more useful forms of support. No other campaign is known to have listed paraphernalia sales as donations.
Brian Jones, McCain’s communications director, and his two deputies, Matt David and Danny Diaz, stepped down but plan to stay on through the week. Two others in the communications shop at the campaign headquarters also are leaving, as are two staffers apiece in Iowa and South Carolina.
Jill Hazelbaker, McCain’s current New Hampshire communications director, is expected to take over for Jones and head up a slimmed-down media operation.
Note to Internet, enough with all these ‘girl’ videos. Obama Girl, Giuliani Girl, Hot 4 Hill. It seems like the net is now operating the same as regular television. One person sees a trend and ninety copies show up the next day.
I have noticed a lot of people, especially in the left and Hollywood wing of the Democratic Party are hoping for such a ticket. I personally am not too convinced it will work. I think a Northern/Southern (or Midwest) strategy is still the best for a Democratic ticket. The problem with the last one was that Kerry was a little too northern and Edwards might have a bit of a drawl but politically he isn’t southern at all. (Also you don’t pick someone who was pretty much guaranteed of losing their Senate seat if they ran in the hope of picking up their state or those surrounding them in an election).
In my own opinion Hillary is better served by someone like Evan Bayh. Also to address the big giant pink elephant in the room America might me ready for a white woman and potentially a black man on their own for an election, together I am not so sure. Everyone when polled responds that they would vote for almost anyone, in practice we will see.
A Hillary/Obama would be heavy on fundraising and Internet buzz and potentially light on votes counted.
