The Federal Election Commission requires presidential campaigns to file monthly and quarterly fundraising reports. Those reports are public information. Campaigns are typically able to file full reports within hours to a few days of the end of a given quarter; we have just passed the end of the April-June quarter for 2012 and of course, the end of the month of June.
The Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee have already filed their June report, showing $100 million raised in one month. The Obama campaign has yet to release its fundraising total either for the quarter or for the month of June. The Obama campaign has been busy, though, fundraising off the heatwave and off its own prediction that Romney’s campaign will outraise theirs.
The deadline to file monthly reports falls on the 20th of each following month, so the June reports must be filed with the FEC by July 20. Filing reports usually get a tactical handling: Healthy campaigns confident that they’re winning the money race will usually file early and release their numbers to show dominance. A campaign struggling to raise money will typically wait to file its report as close to the deadline as possible, both to delay bad news and to get past the week or so when the most attention is paid to fundraising numbers. We’re at July 6 today, two weeks to go, and we have Romney’s numbers but not Obama’s. In May, Romney outraised Obama by $78 million to $60 million. Now Romney has raised $100 million in June. Every July day that passes without a report hints that the Obama campaign’s fundraising is off by a few dollars more than they want to acknowledge.
Hey, it takes time to cook the books! Congratulations to the Romney team.
I’m not sure what to believe. Considering the level of deceit and corruption we have seen from Obama, he could be suppressing his numbers to stimulate donors. It’s a stupid strategy, but then Obama does stupid things. It’s gotten so bad that I don’t even believe good news anymore.
I agree there could be another motive. Given the suggestion that people give their money to the campaign rather than spend it on gifts for family and friends, imagine the embarrassment if they actually raised more money than Romney.
Don’t forget he’s also been warning that Romney is raising too much money and that he, Obama, is therefore the underdog. His campaign finances could belie that claim.
Hey Corporate America is trying to buy the election and the country vis a vis Mitt Romney – are we really surprised he got 100 million? We know they want a 3rd world state with a ruling class and 90% poor populous…And the data shows us we’re getting closer to that with every passing decade!
Dear Komrade, please note that the middle class did much better under the corporation friendly Bush administration than it has under the Glorious Dear Leader and his socialist plans.
If your desired outcome is truly to improve the lives of as many citizens as possible, it would stand to reason that an improving middle class should be your goal, rather than trying to tear down that same middle class.
The socialist approach seems far better suited to having a ruling 1% over a poor and subjegated 99% than the capitalist approach – which allowed circumstances that gave rise to the once vibrant middle class that is now under so much financial strain.
Surely you don’t want circumstances such as existed in the old USSR wherein a tiny ruling class drove around in Mercedes and had dachas in the country while the great majority of Soviets stood in bread lines?
Lies, lies and more lies – that’s all you get from the Obama Administration; we can no longer believe anything that they say. Don – If corporate America wants 90% of us to be poor and in servitude to the ruling class, then who would buy the products and services that make them wealthy? Take off the tinfoil helmet and come out of your parent’s basement, Dude. America is not what your marxist professors told you it is.
It is irritating that we haven’t heard the June Obama fundraising numbers. And we can talk about promises Obama has made and not kept. It’s something that those of us to the left of Obama have been doing for years.
However, it is one thing to be against Obama. It is another to be for Romney. And while we know Romney is doing well in raising money, I think it’s important to ask– from who? Are we seeing blue-collar Americans in swing states who want a change from Obama chipping in what they can to help Romney because they believe in him? Or are we seeing Romney’s billionaire and millionaire friends making painless investments? It makes a difference.
In 2004, I knew that Kerry was in trouble early on, because people were all-over the ABB (Anybody But Bush Mantra). I see a LOT of ABO stuff out there, but you know, being AGAINST Obama won’t win the election. Unless Romney can get people to be FOR him, he will not be able to win the election. And if he keeps having huge hauls that are predominantly from large checks from rich people, that isn’t really helping him. He needs lots of checks from working class stiffs. Then we know he is reaching folks and winning hearts and minds.
Dear BarocheDique
You said lies, lies, lies. Am I wrong? Is the income gap between the rich and poor is not growing wider in the USA? Are you saying that the difference in yearly salary between CEO and employee is not exponentially higher now than it was in the 1970s? Is it not the wealthy that disproportionately benefit from taxes? What happen to realized wages of workers during the years of the Bush Tax Cuts? Average income actually fell for the great majority of the middle and lower classes.
Baroche are you simply buying into what Fox News feeds you or are you looking at what the data shows? I prefer science not fiction…
(wealthy disproportionately benefit from tax cuts)
OK. The wealthy benefit disproportionately from tax cuts. Did you ever wonder why? Answer – because they pay disproportionately MORE.
– they don’t need to comply with the FEC requirements.
Oh Carmelita stop being such a simpleton. The whole finance structure is now balanced in favor of the ultra wealthy who have money to put their lobbyists all over capitol hill. Why are capital gains now taxed between 15 and 20% instead of regular income rates? Who cashes in the most on capital gains? If you guessed Mitt Romney and his buddies you would be right! It’s definitely not one of the line workers in the factory. Wouldn’t a more fair structure be to tax maybe the first 1 million in capital gains profits at 15-20% and then have a progressive tax structure on increasing amounts over that? Why is it that in 1970s the average CEO was making maybe 30 times the average employee and is now making 400 times? Does this guy now also need a tax break from the government? Do you think countries do better when an ever increasing proportion of total wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands? Or do you think that has been the downfall of once great empires? We’ve got massive debt and the Romney answer is to cut taxes for the wealthy and reduce food stamps and medicaid for the poor. What a plan!
Ad hominem is a compliment from you, Don. You can’t win me over with sweetness…
Let me summarize your argument for you. “Romney bad – blah blah blah. Because shut up you simpleton.”
I suppose you have no problem with the crony capitalism and lobbyists pervasive in the Obama administration, no problem with all the green pseudo technologies sucking American tax dollars into failure upon failure. I could go on and on with the financial follies of the Obama administration – but the unemployment statistics speak for themselves. Give me the halcyon days of George W. Bush’s “Hooverville” with 5% unemployment and a growing economy. Put money into the hands of investors and businesses are expanded, jobs created, and unemployment at 89 million people and growing is a thing of the past.
Capital gains taxes… blah blah blah. We know what works, and we know what doesn’t, and Obama’s ‘plan’ of more of the same does NOT work.
1. If the facts are against you, argue the law. 2. If the law is against you, argue the facts. 3. If the facts and the law are against you, dazzle them with one of Don’s “Look there’s a squirrel!” arguments. See above.
“We’ve got massive debt and the Romney answer is to cut taxes for the wealthy and reduce food stamps and medicaid for the poor. What a plan!”
Actually that is a great plan. All of the jobs I have ever had were had because some person who was wealthy decided to start a business. I have never gotten a job from a person on food stamps nor a poor person. I HAVE had my income taxed enough already you fool. And yes, that last sentence ends in a ad hominem but only in the sense that is it derogatory towards fools for including you with them.