The Daily Background
| My, what big checks you write, Mitt
by Arlen Parsa
On the Republican side, the presidential candidate with the best news it seems, fundraising-wise, is Mitt Romney (note: Giuliani has not yet released his fundraising totals for the 2nd Q, but they are not expected to beat Romney’s). He hauled in $20M the first quarter, and $20M the second– nice. No significant decline in donations at a time when other GOP candidates were having trouble (evidence: McCain and several of the smaller candidates).
That’s what we were all thinking when Romney’s camp announced they had hauled in more than $20M late last week. Except for one thing. Now we learn that of that $20M, $6.5 of it came in the form of one big check from Romney himself. He donated exactly enough to put him, barely, over the edge of what he had raised in the 1st Q. How cute. The Washington Post reports:
Mitt Romney raised $14 million from April through June for his Republican presidential campaign and added an extra $6.5 million from his own personal wealth.
Romney’s fundraising fell short of his first quarter, when he raised $20.6 million and lent himself $2.35 million.
The campaign reported $12 million cash on hand, equal to the amount he had in the bank at the end of the first quarter. Aides said the campaign also boosted its number of donors from 32,000 in the first quarter to 80,000 for the first six months of the year.
[…]
Romney is the wealthiest candidate in the entire presidential field, with assets estimated at between $190 million and $250 million. His total stake in the campaign now is $8.85 million.
80,000 donors is very significant, there’s no doubt about it. But this whole fake inflation of his numbers thing is really pretty lame. I had heard some people joke, before this news of his check came out, that he would wait until the last minute before midnight on the Saturday that the 2nd Q fundraising deadline came, and then tally up his current donations and write a check for however much was needed to top his 1st Q numbers. Apparently that joke wasn’t far off…
Update: MSNBC’s First Read has an update for us, on Giuliani’s numbers:
On the surface, it appears that Giuliani outraised Romney in the second quarter, when you subtract the $6.5 million loan Romney gave his campaign. In a press release, the Giuliani camp has just reported raising more than $17 million (versus Romney’s $14 million in primary funds), and it announced it has $18 million cash on hand (versus Romney’s $12 million).
However, Team Rudy’s press release doesn’t indicate how much of his haul is primary vs. general money. And until we find that out, we won’t know the REAL GOP winner of the second quarter (because general election money doesn’t matter unless you win the nomination).
Looks like I may have to take what I said about Giuliani not beating Romney back… sort of.
I find it kind of humorous that people are making a “story” out of this. Surely you don’t think Romney was somehow under the impression that this loan (or donation, whatever you want to call it) would somehow be kept secret from the public, do you? Like he is actually trying to dupe the public about this or something, and only thanks to “hard-hitting investigative journalism” do we know the real truth?
Ever hear of public record?