Posted on 11/19/2011 4:53:48 AM PST by IbJensen
"Obama had raised about $89 million for his own re-election campaign. That's nearly 31 times the amount Gingrich raised during the same period. It's even more than 2.7 times the amount raised by Romney..."
While he has surged in recent polls, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich may be missing one key ingredient for making a late-stage power play for the GOP presidential nomination: money.
In years past, political candidates have certainly been erroneously written off by pundits and the press. Notably, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was widely thought to have fizzled long before he ultimately surged back to life and snagged the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 2008.
While McCain looked pretty weak at one point during the 2008 campaign and still came back, he was never as behind as Gingrich money-wise. While McCain trailed in terms of fund-raising in 2007, he had still raised tens of millions of dollars.
Gingrich lags far behind that pace -- both in absolute terms and relative to his rivals.
As of September 30, the date of the most recent campaign finance reports, Gingrich's presidential campaign had brought in just $2.9 million, according to research by the Center for Responsive Politics.
That's only about 9 percent of GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney's $32.2 million fund-raising haul during the same period.
At the end of September in 2007, McCain had raised about $32.1 million -- which was about two-thirds of the amount collected by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and about half the sum brought in by Romney during that same time period, according to the Center's research.
Gingrich's receipts through the end of the third quarter are less than basically every other major GOP presidential candidate.
He also reported debts to the tune of $1.2 million at the end of the third quarter -- more than every other GOP candidate except former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who has loaned his campaign more than $2 million.
As of the end of September, Gingrich had raised only about half as much money as former Godfather's Pizza chief executive officer Herman Cain, who himself has been no fund-raising titan.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), the founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, meanwhile, had raised about 60 percent more money than Gingrich. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) had raised more than 4.3 times as much money as Gingrich. And Texas Gov. Rick Perry had raised nearly six times as much money as Gingrich.
Beyond the traditional campaign war chests, this election candidates will also be getting extra support from super PACs -- which can collect unlimited contributions from individuals, unions and corporations to produce political advertisements or pay for canvassers and phone banks.
A 27-year-old Coloradoan named Charlie Smith recently launched a super PAC supportive of Gingrich's presidential bid and touted an initial fundraising haul of $10,000.
But Gingrich is not alone in having supporters create such groups to collect money from deep-pocketed allies.
A Romney-aligned group called Restore Our Future reported raising $12 million through the end of June, the date of the group's most recent campaign finance filing with the Federal Election Commission. And a Perry-aligned group called Make Us Great Again has said it plans to spend $55 million to help Perry secure the nomination.
Notably, none of this even takes into account the stark fund-raising contrast between Gingrich and President Barack Obama.
Through the end of September, Obama had raised about $89 million for his own re-election campaign. That's nearly 31 times the amount Gingrich raised during the same period. It's even more than 2.7 times the amount raised by Romney.
With Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses less than two months away, every candidate is furiously attempting to raise money.
We'll find out soon whether there has been a new gusher into Gingrich's campaign coffers. But to be successful, he'll need to climb out of a very deep financial hole.
Is Newt today’s John McCain? Maybe, but then why has McCain been making himself so visible the past couple of months? ‘Tis a puzzlement.
This is bull$&!t! If he wins the nomination enough money will flow in for him to win the election! If he loses it won’t be the money!!
Because what is important is, that we spread our effort and money around in chaos, to ensure that no candidate can really win against one of the most heavily funded and organized parties in history.
You see, what matters most is our pride and principles. If we can't win it all exactly the way we demand, then we will teach them a lesson they'll never forget, and we will even become more fragmented and chaotic and vote for some 3rd party idiot who hardly nobody has ever heard of, or we will stay at home on election day.
So what if the entire country goes completely down the tubes. At least we will know that those rotten, evil, nasty Republican RINOs will go down with us.
The so-called MSM (Main Stream Media) can bear that handle no longer. They’ve abrogated their once important role and are as irrelevant as today’s comic sections in their worthless rags.
Thank God and venues like Free Republic!
The MSM is copying Rush’s Operation Chaos, where Rush supported Hillary to keep her in the election longer to bash away at Zero. Everytime someone gets some traction, the press unleashes on him, with the help of a lot of the more rabid FReepers around here, and beats them back down to the pack. That way they continue to gash away at each other until voters think none of them are worth a damn.
Mitt spent a small fortune in 2008 to try to buy the GOP nomination. How’d that work out for him?
That’s was my point. Did you read the post?
So?
Let me introduce you to Greg Ballard...
Main article: Indianapolis mayoral election, 2007Ballard was the only Republican to file for mayor, as few members of the city's once-dominant Republican Party were willing to run against Peterson.
Ballard was dramatically outspent by Peterson. He had only $300,000 in campaign funds and low name recognition when he began the race.[4] In comparison, Peterson already had $2.9 million in April while Ballard had only $9,560 at the time.[5] As late as October 14, Ballard had run no TV ads.[5] An October 19 campaign finance report showed that Peterson had raised $1.5 million since April and still had that much on hand to spend. At that point in time Ballard had only $51,000 left, meaning that Peterson had 30 times the funds that Ballard had during the last three weeks of the campaign.[6]
So?
The Demos KNOW who their candidate is (so it seems).
Just wait until the primaries are over, and the money can be focused on one; instead of scattered all over the landscape.
Though he might get tossed under the bus as the FULL impact of his looming loss becomes undeniably apparent to those behind the throne.
For some reason I just can’t get excited about Newt. He wimped out as speaker of the house when things in the kitchen got hot. And he has a lot of baggage the dems are going to open up in the same kitchen if he is the “R” candidate.
Yes!
Think back to the period of time when the on-going debate was whether we could become a real nation. A very great issue was that of slavery.
Surely, there was/is not a more foundational question to be dealt with than that one. Had those strongly opposing slavery not concentrated on the grand prize of what the new nation might be(come), they could have so insisted on the purity (and dare I say, righteousness) that they could have refused to “settle”.
It appears that we had RINOs, even then. And look at the colossal mistake that has been these last two hundred years plus! Why, we and the world are vastly worse off for having struck that odious bargain with “the Devil” than had the anti-slavery advocates stuck unwaveringly to their guns.
Isn’t it wonderful that we have so many here that will not fall into that trap again!!!
Maybe that’s why so many have decided it’s now “Mitt’s turn.” Our little Republican primary voters always seem to choose the wrong nominees.
Guess we are only helping the enemy when we ask tough questions about your St Newt hmm?
The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarters Expenses?
Odd when you were racing around here trash talking everyone not Newt, never heard a word of complaint about how people on FR were helping the enemy.
Guess we are only helping the enemy when we ask tough questions about your St Newt hmm?
Maybe, but remember that Barack Hussein Obama, the paper cornhole candidate with no fire insurance, was elected President.
I thought this article was abut financing for the campaigns?!
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