Over the next several days, most of the 2008 candidates for President will be announcing their fundraising totals. Yesterday, Senator McCain announced his campaign’s take for the 2nd quarter, and the news was not good.
Not only is his total (about $11.2 million) expected to trail Mayor Giuliani and Governor Romney, his cash-on-hand is a very low $2 million. McCain’s campaign manager announced a restructuring that involves laying off scores of staffers, perhaps more than half.
But, McCain is not the first candidate to find himself in this situation. In 2004, another U.S. Senator running for President, who is also a Vietnam vet and was the early favorite to win the nomination, found his campaign floundering. Funds were short, and many people were writing off his candidacy.
Fortunately, this 2004 candidate could rescue his campaign by pulling a page out of "Clean" Gene McCarthy’s playbook in 1968. He found a donor who strongly believed in the importance of his campaign and who was willing to write a substantial check to allow the candidate to effectively communicate his message to voters by running television and radio ads, making get-out-the-vote calls, and sending direct mail.
The candidate, of course, was John Kerry. The donor willing to write a multi-million dollar check to his campaign, of course, was also John Kerry.
Unfortunately for McCain, I don’t think he has the type of wealth that will allow him to give to his campaign the way Kerry did. Doubly unfortunate for McCain, he has spent a great deal of his time in the Senate tilting at alleged "corruption" and working to further regulate political speech and contributions, all the while demonizing the contributors that his campaign sorely needs.
If Senator McCain had instead focused his efforts on deregulating campaign finance and political speech, he too might be in a position to follow the lead of Senators McCarthy and Kerry and turn to a few (or even single) individuals who strongly believe in his message, his experience, and his positions on the issues.
Instead, he managed to strengthen and expand the very campaign finance regulation system that now threatens to deprive him of the funds needed to communicate his message. An ironic possible end for this "reformer."
