Saturday, 5 January 2008
McConnell's Money Advantage
On Thursday Senator McConnell's campaign announced that he has raised almost $11 million dollars for his re-election effort. Even with the large ad buy he made recently he still has a ton left in the bank.
According to a campaign press release, McConnell still has $7.3 million on hand despite large television buys for ads he began airing immediately after the Nov. 6 election.....
.....And despite spending an untold amount on the ads in the last month and a half, the McConnell campaign said it actually increased its money on hand by about $500,000 in the fourth quarter.
That is an astronomical sum of money and his campaign is flaunting the obvious advantage he enjoys.
"With 306 days until Election Day, our prospective opponents would need to raise more than $35,000 per day each and every day between now and the election to collect what we've raised to date," McConnell campaign aide Justin Brasell said in a statement.
Of course critics began harping immediately.
Shortly after McConnell's campaign sent out a release announcing the senator's donations, the Public Campaign Action Fund, which favors campaign finance reforms that McConnell opposes, sent out its own press release critical of McConnell.
"No one in Kentucky ought to see McConnell's fundraising as anything but his mastery of a corrupt political system that places the interests of donors ahead of all Kentuckians," the group said.
While the announcement is arrogant and opens him up to charges of being controlled by special interest, it is a brilliant move. First It is targeted at those thinking about running against him.
Democratic candidate Andrew Horne says that he needs half of the money McConnell needs to run competitively against him. If that is true, then Horne is going to have to raise $18,000 every day between now and the election. That means he needs 18 people to write him thousand dollar checks every day for the next 11 months.Those who can self finance are going to have decide if they want to spend $10,000 dollars of their own money every day between now and November to be competitive. I must say that it is a powerful disincentive for running.
Secondly, the timing is perfect. While the political class may castigate him, the general electorate isn't paying attention. If people are focused on politics at all then they are probably watching the the presidential race and not the senate race.
Basically, McConnell gets to send a powerful message to his potential adversaries while suffering next to zero political fallout in the process. Sweet move.
