10 Nov 2003 | Brad Hurley said...

Bush isn't raising $200 million for the primary. He's raising it for the election.

After the Democratic primaries, then I'll give money to the candidate to help the Dems counter the Republican advertising blitz. (Although, truth be told, I did give money to Dean a few months ago, the first time I've ever donated to a candidate before the primary)

Neither Dean nor Bush can buy the election. But if one party's TV ads are running every 5 minutes while the other doesn't have enough money to run 'em more than once every couple of hours, it's sure to make a difference.

10 Nov 2003 | JF said...

Bush isn't raising $200 million for the primary. He's raising it for theelection.

Yeah, that was a weird statement too. Come on, Dean, why do you have to make your point with shady claims?

11 Nov 2003 | One of several Steves said...

Bush's team has already made clear that a huge chunk of what they're raising now is for primary season, and that they plan on spending plenty of money during it. I seem to recall running across a figure of $100 million, but don't have time to verify at the moment.

To my ears (as someone who used to work in politics and covered it for newspapers before), Dean's not so much talking about buying an election as being competitive. It's not a foolproof equation, but most of the time if Democrats can be in the same neighborhood as Republicans in terms of money raised and spent, they win. Not as applicable to the presidential races, where until Bush II everyone since the current public financing system was established in the 70s stuck with the public funding and therefore spending caps. But if you study gubernatorial races, senatorial races, etc., Democrats win more often than not when they can come close to matching the Republican's dollars. And that's what Dean's trying to pull off.

11 Nov 2003 | One of several Steves said...

To elaborate further:

The big danger to the Democratic nominee is that the system bases its fund dispersals and spending caps on the party conventions. So, given the crowded field, the Democratic nominee would have spent the bulk of his allowed $45 million just to win the primaries. Now there are several months till the election, in which he cannot spend anything, because the system's rules do not allow new funding and therefore new spending till the conclusion of the party's convention. And yet, Bush can spend during that period and will, and can do it to directly go against the now-known nominee. This is precisely what Clinton did to Dole in 1996, and it's a factor in why Dole's campaign was largely DOA.

Also, to clarify, Bush was not the first to opt out of the public financing system, but he was the first "major" candidate to do so (previous notable opt-outers included Ross Perot in 1992 and Steve Forbes in 1996).

11 Nov 2003 | One of several Steves said...

Now there are several months till the election, in which he cannot spend anything,

That should have been till the convention.

And that's my last post for the moment. Promise.

11 Nov 2003 | Brad Hurley said...

Bush's team has already made clear that a huge chunk of what they're raising now is for primary season

I'll take your word for it, but I don't understand why he needs to spend that kind of money on a primary when he's the candidate by default? Is it just to draw attention away from the Democrats during primary season?

11 Nov 2003 | liberal-hater said...

Howard Dean sucks because he's a flipping liberal who shoots his mouth off all over the place. Bush will be re-elected in '04.

11 Nov 2003 | circles said...

aren't you cute :)

11 Nov 2003 | ek said...

Biggest problem for the dems is that they don't stand for anything.

It makes me so sad when I hear (I still hear this) dems bitching and moaning about how Ralph Nader lost the 2000 election for them.

Earth to dems; it was your entirely vacuous party led by your vacuous, insulting, and incompetent chairman (aka Terry McAuliffe), represented by your 100% charisma-free candidate that lost the election for you.

The fact that so many people at the core of the party still don't get this is devestatingly sad.

I have low hopes for a change in presidential leadership in 2004.

11 Nov 2003 | Don Schenck said...

ek is right.

(Disclaimer: I wanted McCain in 2000)

11 Nov 2003 | Don Schenck said...

I'll make a deal with the American People (r):

Give *ME* $200 million and I'll go away. :-)

I'm getting to hate politics, which means "their" ploy is working.

11 Nov 2003 | One of several Steves said...

The fact that so many people at the core of the party still don't get this is devestatingly sad.

While I don't disagree with you at all, ek, regarding the absence of ideas and positions from the Democratic party, you could not be more wrong regarding Nader's effect on the election.

It's not accurate to assume that all Nader voters would have voted for Gore had Nader not been on the ballot. But, even assuming a very conservative 30 percent of Nader voters going for Gore, Gore would have won both New Hampshire and Florida. Had he won just New Hampshire, he would have had 271 electoral votes, and Gore would be president.

Nader supporters who deny that their candidate's presence are being disingenuous or even dishonest when they insist Nader's presence didn't help cost Gore the election (note I said help, not the sole cause of; Gore did plenty to screw it up all by himself).

Nader supporters also often seem to miss that Nader made it no secret that part of what he wanted to accomplish was to cripple the Democratic party so the progressives could take over. Brilliant strategy, that.

11 Nov 2003 | One of several Steves said...

I don't understand why he needs to spend that kind of money on a primary when he's the candidate by default? Is it just to draw attention away from the Democrats during primary season?

Forgot to responde to this before hitting "post" on the last comment.

Anyway, Brad, I alluded to the strategy when mentioning what Clinton did to Dole in 1996. By the time Dole won enough primaries to lock up the nomination, he had basically run out of money to spend - more accurately, hit the spending caps - until the conventions. Once the convention happened, then he got a new ability to spend. Meanwhile, Clinton spent the 3-4 months before the convention spending his money allowed during the pre-convention season (there is no "primary" season under the public financing system, just pre-convention and post-convention).

In other words, Clinton had 3-4 months where he could spend gobs of money while Dole could spend none. Which allowed Clinton to build up a huge advantage that Dole would have a very hard time overcoming.

And that's what Bush would do next year. Not to mention, he's already opted out of public financing, so he can spend as much as he wants. Any Democrat would frankly be stupid to cap himself while the other guy can dump gobs of money on him. Regardless of when on the calendar that spending takes place.

I'm no fan of Dean, but from pure campaign strategy, this move is not only the smart one. It's the only one.

11 Nov 2003 | ed said...

I think what Dean is really trying to do, is point out that Bush is preparing to buy the election. Bush can't get elected on his track record. For every postive thing he's done, there are 20 negative things he's done. most of his mis-deeds aren't even getting press at the moment. Oh but they will, be sure of that.

What Dean is saying is that it takes money to fight money. And by reducing it down to such a simple formula, he is encouraging people to give (probably a bit more than they would have before). His statement is designed to make you and I think that our dollars will make a difference. And he has a convincing argument. I'm sure that there are at least 2 million liberal-leaning thirty-somethings (with expendible income), just in LA, San Fran, Chicago and NY alone who'd be willing to put down their hard earned 100 bucks to defeat good ole Gee Dub.

and one last comment: Nader didn't lose the election for Gore. Jeb Bush, katherine Harris and The Supreme Court stole the election for Gee Dub. and that's for real.

11 Nov 2003 | Matthew Oliphant said...

Interesting paralell on what it will take for the Dems to win against Bush over at Atrios.