A Slow Start?
The Los Angeles Times takes a look at Fred Thompson's fundraising in the third quarter -- a period of time in which he was an official candidate for 24 days -- and declares him "behind". Instead of looking at a fundraising rate that seems fairly impressive, Dan Morain makes the trenchant analysis that the candidate who just joined the race last month finds himself behind other candidates who have raised money for their third straight quarter:
In an indication that his presidential campaign is off to a slow start financially, Republican Fred Thompson raised $8 million in the third quarter of 2007, which included his first month as a declared candidate.Combined with the money he raised while he considered joining the race, Thompson has gathered $11.5 million for the year, putting him a distant fourth in the GOP money race behind Mitt Romney, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sen. John McCain.
"It is not a number that is going to make Republican activists say, 'Wow,' " said Claremont McKenna College political scientist John J. Pitney Jr. "It is a defensible number, but not an impressive one."
Since Thompson formally entered the race a month ago, he has raised $5 million, or about $200,000 a day.
It would be difficult to find a more asinine analysis of fundraising. Fred Thompson's fundraising since his announcement came to $200K per day. Extrapolated over a full quarter (90 days), that comes to $18 million -- a fundraising rate that would certainly be very impressive indeed. He also added 70,000 donors, a very substantial indication of a broad reach in the electorate.
Will any other GOP candidate, having been in for a full quarter, reach that number in Q3? It's doubtful. In fact, the only candidates to approach that number in any quarter were Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, and in Q2 Mitt had to loan himself six million dollars to surpass it. Mitt has had the best fundraising numbers altogether, but we have yet to see the Q3 figures.
It looks like everyone else has slowed down. Barack Obama's fundraising total came in at a health $20 million, but that's a decline from $32.5 million in Q2. He found another 93,000 donors, bringing him over 350,000 -- but his Q3 numbers are only 20% more than Thompson's, and Obama had the full quarter. Senior aides to Hillary Clinton predicted her totals to run in the same general area as Obama.
Meanwhile, John McCain raised $5 million in Q3, but Ron Paul reportedly raised $3 million in the same period. McCain's totals show that his reorganization worked, but it still represents a figure lower than John Edwards, who had to commit to public financing to keep his campaign afloat. Paul's numbers show that he has continued to refine his on-line draw, and at this stage, analysts can't dismiss the support that he receives. It hasn't translated to polling, but it shows that he won't get pushed off the debate stage any time soon.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on October 2, 2007 4:40 AM | Comments () | TrackBacks (2)
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