The Politico’s Martin: “Rivals race to catch Romney money machine”
On Friday, Jonathan Martin of the Politico wrote a detailed post on the finance situations of all the major Republican candidates. Here’s what he had to say about Senator McCain’s finance sector:
But just as Romney reaps the rewards of this cycle of perception, polls and money, one of his opponents has fallen into a vicious circle.
Sen. John McCain had a lackluster third-place finish in the first quarter, forcing him to revamp his campaign finance team and set firm goals that his top fundraisers were expected to meet.
Even so, McCain is expected to finish last again among the top three declared candidates, resurrecting fresh doubts about what has happened to the former front-runner.
’Artificial benchmarks’
McCain’s people blame his long past of clashing with well-heeled interests, and his stance on the Iraq war and immigration, the last of which is anathema to most grass-roots Republicans.
Fred Malek, a co-chair of McCain’s national finance effort, praised the senator’s willingness “to cut against the grain of popular opinion.”
But Malek, a veteran of George H.W. Bush’s campaigns and longtime GOP insider, acknowledges those attributes now “pose challenges” when he picks up the phone to raise money.
“I’m having success, but I must say we’d have more success if we didn’t have those things,” Malek said, alluding to McCain’s identification with an unpopular war and immigration plan.
A McCain aide tried to downplay the significance of the quarterly fundraising numbers.
“There is a constant desire to quantify where this race is at, to look at the new poll of the day, to look to new fundraising numbers. People gravitate to those benchmarks, which in many ways are artificial when we’re seven months from the first vote being cast.”
Despite his acknowledged disdain for fundraising, McCain has gamely shaken the money tree over the past three months.
Just this month, he’s already done 35 events, and he’ll do 10 more over the next week. Also helping the cause is his wife, Cindy, whose has soloed at half-dozen events this month.
McCain’s team has also ramped up its K St efforts, using supportive senators such as Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) to fire up Washington fundraisers in private meetings and nudging supportive trade association heads to encourage their counterparts to get on board.
The hustle for lobbyist cash concludes with a big-ticket event next week at the Capitol Hill Club with the senator and a “Young Professionals” luncheon featuring Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.).
“We’ll have the resources necessary to communicate the senator’s message,” said McCain spokesman Brian Jones.
Expectations
But, as with his counterpart Madden, McCain spokesman Brian Jones can’t help but lower the bar.
“The senator is someone who has always stood on principle, taking stances against special interests. Those attributes will make him a very strong candidate and an even stronger president, but they can at times make fundraising challenging.”
McCain’s team engaged in what was thought to be similar expectation-lowering going into the end of the first quarter, but it turned out not to be spin at all. They raised just over $12.5 million, behind both Romney and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s $15 million.
“It’s not like raising money for Bush,” laments one of McCain’s Washington bundlers and “Pioneer” for the current president, pointing to the presence of “four front-runners” in a “scattered field” that is very different from the 2000 race.
But another Bush Pioneer who is now advising McCain, California investor Gerald Parsky, said McCain is on track and, because of his well-honed image, doesn’t necessarily need the richest war chest.
“McCain will have the money that is necessary for him to run his kind of campaign,” said Parsky.
Jones, the McCain spokesman, said the structural changes they made to their fundraising operation “will be reflected in this report” and beyond.
The Arizonan has already lined up summer fundraisers with such business titans as New York Stock Exchange CEO John Thain and Cisco CEO John Chambers.
As for reports of fundraisers defecting to the campaign-in-waiting of Sen. Fred Thompson, a McCain aide dismissed the two examples as isolated incidents.
Washington lawyer John Dowd “is not even a junior lightweight” on the fundraising circuit and socialite Georgette Mosbacher was “at one point romantically linked” to Thompson, the aide said.
Read the entire article here.
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