The United States Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, is attracting millions more dollars in funding than expected, which could allow him to match the much-vaunted Barack Obama donation machine.
He is on course to raise $400-million for the November election, which he said would put him roughly level with Obama. McCain surprised US political pundits by raising $22-million in June, his best showing since he launched his bid for the White House early last year.
Obama remains favourite to win the election, with polls showing him on average five points ahead, but McCain is showing increasing signs of making a fight of it in spite of his lacklustre campaign so far.
Obama opted out of a public finance scheme — which provides $84,1-million in federal funding to cover election expenses but sets that as a ceiling — in expectation of raising hundreds of millions more.
But he is suffering for several reasons: a failure so far to win over the big Democratic fund-raisers who bankrolled Hillary Clinton’s failed campaign for the nomination; an unwillingness of his supporters to help cancel Clinton’s $23-million debt; and, to a lesser extent, a creeping disillusionment among sections of the party grassroots with his recent shift from left to centre.
Obama’s campaign team has yet to post its fund-raising figures for June. His fund-raising has been on a downward trend: he raised $55-million in February, $41-million in March, $31-million in April and $22-million in May. The June figures are expected to reverse that trend but still fall significantly short of the total needed to meet election budget needs.
Obama’s campaign team said on Friday that a Wall Street Journal report that he had raised $30-million in June — $20-million less than expected — was ”way off the mark”. A spokesperson, Dan Pfeiffer, said: ”Some in the press still haven’t realised that anyone who is talking about numbers doesn’t know what our numbers are.”
In addition to what he raises himself, McCain will have access to the funds of the cash-rich Republican party — about $68-million — while Obama will have only modest help from the Democratic party, which has about $3-million at its disposal.
Obama devoted much of this week to private fund-raising events, courting in particular Clinton’s wealthy supporters. Obama can return again and again to the small donors he has attracted on the internet but needs the big donors as well.
”It’s one of the reasons why the Clinton people are so important,” Kirk Wagar, Obama’s Florida finance chairperson, told the Washington Post. ”Most of us have beaten our Rolodexes [contact lists] pretty badly.” — guardian.co.uk