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.
I thought this article was abut financing for the campaigns?!
The point of this story should be the fact that there is a TON of money flowing to any candidate to beat Obama. Add up how much all 8 Republican candidates are raising and compare that amount. As stated before, once a nominee is clear I imagine the money will follow, both from people who were supporting other candidates and those sitting on the sidelines waiting. We will not get a perfect Republican candidate but I will take anyone over the current President.
I didn’t trash talk anyone.
Seems you candidate does not share your opinions. You might want to take note of this.
Is a weathervane/balderdash salesman who will eat your children then convince you to like him for it. I hate to say it, but ideologically, Bachman is the most practicality conservative of the bunch with just enough experience to know what she is talking about *most* of the time. Sarah Palin would have done well if she would have ran. And to say every candidate even Huntsman is better than Obama is like saying breathing air is better than smelling a fart.
And as usual, people get carried away with the MSM’s take, forgetting that much of the MSM are young college-aged punks trying to flash a light in people’s faces to get them to pay attention to their uneducated guesses. I would include Fox News.
Whoever is the GOP winner, hopefully he or she will have the same consolidated support from the electorate that Obama now has. The Republicans will have to stop eating their own when that time comes and get over their childish hurt feelings and get together to vote the National Socialist out. Obama wants American businesses to fail so his regime can take them over. That’s just how a National Socialist Nazi pig like Obama does. The Republicans are a bunch of sell-outs and cut throats, but at least GOP representatives have to hide their socialist/capitalist cronyism from the voters. Obama has no such obligation as his socialsm is unfettered by Democrats.
I do not know if there is a NEWT ping list. Is there a way to post this on the New Hampshire freeper page?
Newt speaks at Rivier College
Monday, November 21 2011 — 9am ET
Dion Center Reception Room
420 S. Main Street
Nashua, NH 03060
Free and open to the public. Doors open at 8am.
Newt unveils his plan to reform federal entitlement programs at St. Anselm College
Monday, November 21 2011 — 12:30pm ET
Institute of Politics
100 St. Anselm College
Manchester, NH
Free and open to the public
Great comments!
Your opinion. Not mine.
Besides angry adjectives, numbskull nouns, nothing but a “nattering nabob of negativism”.
Entirely forgettable (avoidance even better). My opinion.
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