On July 25, I wrote about U.S. Sen. John McCain's newfound ability to raise massive amounts of money from some folks who hadn't been giving him the time of day -- or much money, for that matter -- before he found religion and reversed his long-held position against offshore drilling.
And BOOM! McCain hit a gusher, which I touched on here.
According to a report from The Washington Post:
Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month -- three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban -- compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May.
McCain and his Republican buddies haven't let up since. They believe they've found their holy grail in convincing the American people -- frustrated and burdened by $4 a gallon gas prices -- that offshore drilling will immediately lower those skyhigh prices. There's just one little problem: it's just not true. McCain has admitted it. Even the American Petroleum Institute has admitted it. So why does McCain keep talking about offshore drilling as the solution to all of our nation's problems?
A few more follow-the-money details have emerged:
In a witty (but all-too-familiar) article in today's Los Angeles Times, reporter Dan Morain writes:
DEPARTMENT OF COINCIDENCES
Oilman greases skids for McCain campaign
Among the donors from John B. Hess' company are an office manager and her husband, who pony up $57,000.
August 5, 2008
On June 10, John B. Hess, a top executive at the oil company with his family name, summoned friends to the 21 Club, a former speakeasy in Manhattan, and delivered $285,000 to John McCain and the Republican National Committee.
A week later, McCain traveled to Texas and announced his support for offshore oil drilling.
Hess Corp. is an East Coast gasoline retailer with major refining and exploration operations, some of which happen to be offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.
Hess was one of half a dozen hosts who tapped friends for the maximum $28,500 donation to the GOP. Others included investor Henry Kravis and hedge fund mogul Paul E. Singer.
McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said there was no link between the money and McCain's stand. "Mr. Hess was fundraising before Sen. McCain made the announcement," he said.
Most Hess donors were company attorneys, vice presidents or, like John Hess, board members. But one, Alice Rocchio, listed her job as office manager, and she gave $28,500, as did her husband, Amtrak foreman Pasquale Rocchio.
The information emerged in a Campaign Money Watch report last week, followed by an item Monday on Talking Points Memo, which wondered how they could afford to give $57,000 to a political campaign. Alice Rocchio told TPM that McCain was her favorite candidate and the money was the Rocchios' to give.
The Rocchios also gave $4,600 in February, when Hess employees -- one of whom listed his occupation as "driver" -- delivered $23,000 to McCain. The couple have not given to any other federal campaign for at least the last decade, according to Federal Election Commission records.
But records suggest that the Rocchios are not without resources. The couple listed an address in Flushing, N.Y., and also have an Arizona home.
And this from the Houston Chronicle:
August 05, 2008
McCain's contributions from energy interests spike
John McCain received prolonged applause from the oil executives who gathered June 17 in Houston to hear the Republican presidential candidate's speech on energy policy.
Now it appears that McCain received something else: Lots of campaign contributions.
John McCain's contributions from energy industry interests happened to spike right around his Houston speech (and a fundraising tour of Texas).
Is it a coincidence, the result of aggressive Texas outreach -- or is it a show of gratitude? Let us know what you think.
Chronicle photo
John McCain greets well-wishers after his June 17 energy speech in Houston.
Here's the list:
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ENERGY INTERESTS
DATE.....................AMOUNT
April......................$40,000
May.......................$96,950
June 1-15.............$219,550
June 16-17...........$303,400
June 18-30...........$313,950
For the complete text of McCain's Houston speech, click here.
To read the Houston Chronicle's story on McCain's June 17 speech, click here.
Oh, and there may be just a few more reasons why McCain supports offshore drilling. Maybe it has something to do with all the people who work on or advise his campaign and also lobby for the oil industry? Watch this new ad here:
Last week, I wrote about U.S. Sen. John McCain's attempts to paint himself as a great champion of the American consumer who has been plagued by skyrocketing gas prices. And just how will McCain help bring relief? He has embraced offshore drilling, despite the fact that experts -- and even he -- have admitted that such drilling won't produce any tangible relief, if any, for a very long time.
Maybe McCain has a different sort of relief in sight -- relief for his fundraising efforts that lag far behind those of his rival, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama. According to this very telling report in today's Washington Post's by Matthew Mosk, McCain just may have hit a gusher of his own -- the green kind, not the black kind -- when he reversed his position on offshore drilling earlier this summer. Acoording to the Post article:
Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month -- three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban -- compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May.
McCain said the policy reversal came as a response to rising voter anger over soaring energy prices. At the time, about three-quarters of voters responding to a Washington Post-ABC News poll said prices at the pump were causing them financial hardship, the highest in surveys this decade.
Opening vast stretches of the country's coastline to oil exploration would help America eliminate its dependence on foreign oil, McCain said.
"We have untapped oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States. But a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production," he said. "It is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions."
McCain delivered the speech before heading to Texas for a series of fundraisers with energy industry executives, and the day after the speech he raised $1.3 million at a private luncheon and reception at the San Antonio Country Club, according to local news accounts.
"The timing was significant," said David Donnelly, the national campaigns director of the Public Campaign Action Fund, a nonpartisan campaign finance reform group that conducted the analysis of McCain's oil industry contributions. "This is a case study of how a candidate can change a policy position in the interest of raising money."
To find out more about who gives how much to whom, check out OpenSecrets.org at the Center for Responsive Politics.
This week the presidential campaigns got a week off from facing voters, but that doesn't actually mean they had the week off. On any campaign there are two commodities, time and money; and at this stage in the game neither is more valuable than the other.
On the money front, both campaigns on the Democratic side are seemingly healthy. Senator Obama is touting that he has over one million contributors and Senator Clinton is raising a million dollars a day online. With that sort of support, both campaigns will have no problem getting through next Tuesday's contests in Texas, Ohio, and don't forget Vermont and Little Rhody. (Of course, depending on their spending, you never know what the bank account will look like after Tuesday, but I digress.)
What is clear is that with 444 delegates up for grabs, the most important commodity in the next week will be time. Politically, culturally and most importantly geographically, Texas and Ohio aren't close to each other. So the campaigns will have to shift gears and make important decisions about scheduling. The use of surrogates and volunteers becomes increasingly important, and when it comes to surrogates, Senator Clinton seems to have the greatest surrogate of all, Former President William Jefferson Clinton Madeleine Albright. Senator Obama has been making a pitch for volunteers to come to Ohio to help narrow the gap for him there.
Since the last primaries in Wisconsin and Hawaii, Senator Clinton has held events in Texas and Ohio six times each; Senator Obama has had eight events in Texas and six in Ohio. Along the way Senator Clinton made money stops in Boston, New York, Washington, DC and New Orleans.
Going further, a deeper look at the campaign schedules shows the importance each candidate is putting on each state:
Senator Obama began his day in Ohio with a rally in Columbus at 8:30am before he jetted off to Texas for an event in San Marcos this afternoon. Senator Clinton is spending the day in Ohio while her husband is headlining events in Texas. Tomorrow, Senator Clinton will begin her day in Ohio with a town hall meeting in the southern Ohio town of Hanging Rock before winging her way to Houston for the weekend. Senator Obama will stay in Texas tomorrow, but his schedule through the weekend is still undisclosed. According to recent campaign emails, Senator Obama is planning on heavy volunteer turnout this weekend in Ohio, soliciting volunteers to make a charge on Ohio like the birthplace of avaiation's native son Jack Nicklaus did at the 1986 Masters.
According to my poll in Ohio (with a sample size of 9), Barack Obama will win Ohio with 75% of the vote. Voters with the last name of Gray from Warren, OH are breaking entirely for Senator Obama which should push him over the edge in the Buckeye state.
If both candidates are still standing after Tuesday's primaries, their focus will shift to the Wyoming Democratic Caucus meetings on the 8th and the Mississippi primary on the 11th. Then comes my beloved Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which will be the next contest held on April 22nd.
According to recent polls, Barack Obama is looking more like the Rolling Stones and Hillary Clinton is trending more Hootie and the Blowfish. Not following? Well with a growing lead in the polls and delegate counts, time is definitely on Senator Obama's side ("Time Is On My Side", The Rolling Stones, 1965) and Hillary Clinton is asking "Time, why you punish me?" ("Time", Hootie and the Blowfish, 1993).
Sen. John McCain's problems with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) haven't gone away.
Yesterday, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) filed a complaint against McCain for alledgedly violating campaign finance rules by using the potential of public matching funds as collateral for a loan to keep his campaign afloat, but now trying to withdraw from the spending limits attached to those funds. The FEC last week issued a statement that McCain cannot withdraw his request for matching funds because the Commission, which cannot achieve quorum because 4 of the 6 seats are vacant due to an appointments battle between President Bush and the Senate, cannot issue a ruling on his request. Likewise, they cannot issue any rulings on the DNC's complaint against McCain for the same reasons. For more background on this check out my earlier post: Will Campaign Finance Rules derail the Straight Talk Express?
Ultimately, the crux of this issue is the spending limits. If McCain is bound to those limits (as the DNC complaint is seeking to ensure) then his campaign is on the verge of breaching them. Thus, McCain's campaign has a hard choice before them: stop spending money and go dark until the Republican Convention in September, or break the rules, defy the commission and risk a fine and potential imprisonment of campaign officials (although imprisonment is an unlikely outcome). For more on this, check out Daniel Nashaw's article in The Guardian.
So, the broken FEC is McCain's bane and blessing. Without a quorum, they cannot rule on his request to withdraw from the matching funds program creating an ongoing PR problem for him, but it's a blessing because the FEC cannot rule on the DNC's complaint or McCain's likely breach of the spending limits, either. Whatever happens, McCain seems to be abandoning issues central to his political and personal image (integrity and campaign finance) for political expediency. This isn't the first time McCain has sacrificed his integrity and flip-flopped (immigration). Does anyone expect it to be the last?
Yesterday, all of the 2008 Presidential candidates filed their mandatory Federal Election Commission disclosure reports for the Fourth Quarter of 2007.
According to the Politico's Kenneth P. Vogel the two Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama outraised the four Republican candidates, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul for the 4th Quarter: $49.6mil (Democrats) to $42.2mil (Republicans).
The Center for Responsive Politics, which examines and analyzes campaign financial reports, broke out the individual campaigns' 4th quarter totals, such as total raised and the important cash-on-hand numbers:
As these graphs plainly demonstrate, either Democratic candidate handily outperformed all of the Republican candidates, except Romney, in the important money race for the last three months of 2007 (with Romney being the only Republican candidate on par with their numbers, but he achieved this by injecting over $17mil of his personal money into his campaign during this period).
These 4th Quarter 2007 numbers, where Clinton outperformed Obama, puts into context Obama's voluntary release of his January fundraising numbers. As reported by the Associated Press yesterday (here, for an article) the Obama campaign reported raising a record-setting $32mil for the month of January, which news they hope will offset Clinton's outraising them in the 4th Quarter of last year (and since Clinton has yet to release her January numbers its reasonable to conjecture she did not outperform Obama in the January money race).
What all this means for momentum and resources of Obama or Clinton at this juncture of the campaign is still unclear without concrete January numbers from Clinton for comparison. But, as I blogged a few weeks ago (here), this latest round of financials from the campaigns continue to demonstrate a higher level of enthusiasm and investment in the Democratic candidates over the Republicans, a meaningful measure of support and possible predictor of future performance, especially as the fields narrow and we move toward the General Election in November.
Let’s take a moment in this busy political week to marvel at the wonders of web video. It is simply amazing what this nascent medium has done to change the presidential campaign less than 18 months after the debut of the shaky “Macacca” video.
Think about it for a minute. Before this cycle any of the 300 million Americans who wanted to hear the victory (or concession) speeches coming out of early primary states would have to hope to catch a significant snippet on the broadcast or cable news channels or try to randomly come across it on late-night CSPAN. Or they could read about what David Broder or some pundit who was present at the speech thought about it the next day in the newspaper.
These days when the polls close in South Carolina, anyone from any corner of America (let alone the world) can immediately watch the entire Obama speech, unfiltered, unedited, almost as soon as he gives it. Not only that, but that viewer in, say, California, can then send the link to that video to 30 of her friends and family, and half of them might watch it the next day, and then send the link to their network too.
We’re really only now digesting what that capability does to politics. For one, it nationalizes what once was a very localized event – candidate speeches. A good speech is not just for the consumption of the 1000 people crammed into a hotel ballroom or school gym somewhere in the heartland of America. The speech is open for all the country and all the world to see.
And it isn’t just primary victory speeches – it’s endorsement speeches or whatever else the campaign wants to put out there. Obama had well-packaged versions of the Kennedy endorsements and Obama’s response on the campaign website shortly after they delivered them. People hear some television anchor talk about the endorsement or about Teddy’s passion, and they leave the tube and pull it up on their computer for full viewing.
This is not just happening with journalists and political junkies, but with average Americans. Out here in California, I am getting barraged with links to web video in on online version of the old office water cooler. “Did you see that last night?”
One consequence of this is that average people are almost impulsively giving money to campaigns. They see a passionate speech and in the heat of that moment they click on the button right next to the video that says: “Donate here.” The Washington Post blog reported that just after the Obama speech in South Carolina, the website was processing campaign donations at the rate of $500,000 an hour. I just got off a media conference call with Obama Campaign manager David Plouffe and he said they have raised $5 million online in the two days since South Carolina.
The gap between the spark of passion about a candidate to the moment you can cross the line and give money to a campaign has shrunk to seconds. How long would it have taken you to span that gap just a couple cycles ago, back in the ancient days of the 1990s?
Another consequence of this web video development is that the dying art of political oration might be making a comeback. The political ecosystem of the second half of the 20th century did little to reward great orators like America has seen throughout its history. In that broadcast TV world it was much more important for you to package your message into 30 second sound bites.
But in the new world of web video, where length does not matter because 30 seconds costs the same as 30 minutes, your ability to connect with an audience and hold their attention is a huge asset.
I think that is partly why Obama has been faring so well in this environment (and why I have been focusing on him rather than other candidates in this post). Obama clearly has no peers when it comes to speaking ability. And his campaign has been the most adroit on using the new medium of web video. The Clinton campaign has done a solid job with keeping up with the basic web video capability, but Hillary does not have the same flair for speaking.
There’s been a lot of talk about old and new politics. Set aside what that means about policies, etc., and which candidate best embodies it. Clearly one piece of the new politics has to do with using the new tools, and the first among equals in that lineup is web video.
Just pinch yourself and remember that this web video phenomenon, and all its consequences, has only just begun….
As we move toward the conclusion of the first in the nation New Hampshire primary, let's look at the Money Race and what that bodes for the two parties as they select a nominee and turn toward the general election in the weeks to come...
"...in the first three quarters of 2007, the top three Democratic presidential candidates raised $200 million and had $98 million left, while the top four Republican candidates raised $154 million and had $35 million left. And every month this year, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee raised more than the National Republican Senatorial Committee —$49.3 million raised for Democratic Senate efforts as of Nov. 30 (with $23.4 million on hand), compared with $28.7 million for Republican Senate campaigns ($10.4 million on hand). The Republicans are also at a disadvantage on the House side, with $60.8 million raised by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ($30.7 million cash left) compared with $43.4 million for its Republican counterpart ($2.3 million on hand.)"
This establishes a clear advantage for the Democrats in the Money Race (where historically the Republicans outperform, see below). Taking numbers from the Center for Responsive Politics website which tabulated the various reports demonstrates how unusual 2008 is for the Democrats to be winning the Money Race this cycle (advantages in each catergory are bold, and note these are totals raised, see above for current cash-on-hand advantages):
2008 Cumulative Party Fundraising Democratic Party $211,980,470
Republican Party $201,671,358
Thus, looking at these historical numbers (the 2006 mid-terms, and the 2004 and 2000 Presidential election cycles), you see the repeated advantage that Republicans usually have in the Money Race, and this contrasts starkly with Democrats' recent fundraising prowess in 2008. Taken in light of the many polls and other data indicating more enthusiasm for the Democrats and a weakening of the Republican brand, which we've been writing and talking about for months, it is hard for me to see a pathway, at least in terms of the Money Race, for the Republicans to regain their financial advantage and retain control of the White House and make any gains in Congress in November 2008.
The Democrats clearly have the money advantage in 2008. If they work to craft a 21st century governing agenda and convey it to the voters, the electoral advantage should be theirs, as well.
Chronicle photo
