From Front Runner to First Out?

Finally, after enduring three or four months already of the exhausting lead up to the 2008 Presidential Election (only 19 months to go!!), we have our first seminal moment in the contest to decide who will get to clean up the morass George W. Bush and his administration has placed the United States. With American Presidential elections (and to a lesser extent, Congressional contests) essentially becoming determined by who can store the most in their election coffers (just ask George W. Bush in 2000: Those $2,100 a plate fundraisers certainly did their part in vitiating the advantage Gore possessed amongst registered voters on nearly every issue), the release of the 2007 FY first quarter fundraising totals on the part of each prominent contender is thus the initial barometer of the pulse of the electorate. Though it may seem ridiculous to extrapolate this particular data towards an election that takes place after the next Olympics, historically, the candidates who prevail in the first batch of fundraising tallies generally secure the primary nomination.

Right off the bat, this data portends a bright future for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Il) By accumulating $25 million, the junior senator from Illinois has firmly established himself as a contender for the presidency, despite what those who decry his lack of experience and his supposed connection to an Islamic fundamentalist school in Indonesia (keep fishing for those slanderous stories, far right! Lord knows you wouldn't want to talk about the elections. Hey what happened in the last one, by the way?) may state to the contrary. In the same vein, on the right, Mitt Romney took the initial salvo amongst the GOP with his astonishing take of nearly $20 million. Romney has been besieged by a litany of problems, foremost his status as a Mormon, but more practically, how the former Mass. Governor can deal with his name recognition completely paling in comparison to his competitors, namely Guiliani and McCain. However, given his veritable war chest now in his arsenal, Romney will likely mount a comprehensive advertising campaign designed to dispel the fears the electorate may have about his candidacy. Romney's positions, as of late, has made Jerry Falwell look like Gloria Steinem, and if he can effectively publicize them to voters in key GOP primary states, he may well wistfully recollect this particular day as a watershed moment in his campaign.

That said, the admirable gains upon the release of the fundraising totals of Sen. Obama and Mitt are irrelevant when compared to yet another devastating blow incurred by the campaign of Sen. John McCain. McCain, though he has yet to "officially" announce his intentions to run for the Presidency, has seemingly been the prohibitive favorite to secure the Republican nomination since the moment after Bush was inaugurated for his second term in January 2005. Given this, how can the senior Senator from Arizona come in third in fundraising for the first quarter? A number of factors share complicity for this ignominious showing. First of all, McCain inexplicably conducted only 5 fundraisers for wealthy donors during January and February. Scheduling so few fund raisers is such a disastrous decision, especially compared to the piles of money Giuliani and Romney were raking in the cash, that only Michael Brown would be proud of this early campaign management. Secondly, McCain's campaign has thus far resisted the urge to institute a Bushian-hierarchical system for large scale donors, i.e. those who assist in contributing $100k+ are called "Rangers", et al. Never underestimate the power of a cheeky label on donor's minds, especially since we all know the amount of sycophants that generally donate large amounts to candidates is profligate.

Finally, McCain has re-emerged into the political reality, and thus, has hired prominent former fundraisers to run his money operations. However, this long-delayed decision may already be wholly inconsequential. Why? Because, though on the surface the dearth of funding could simply be attributed to early campaign mis-management on an operational level, in actuality the anemic performance portends larger scale truths about the viability (or lack thereof) of McCain's campaign. In fact, the paucity of funds in his war chest may be hardly anomalous, but instead, indicative of the future of the campaign, right until it's bitter end. Since the beginning of the campaign, McCain has endorsed a politically inpalatable position on Iraq, wavered on key social issues (an act that will kill him amongst independents in a general election) and been unable to counter questions about his increasing age and health. Given this litany of problems, in essence, I'm advocating McCain "cut and run" from his presidential aspirations now, and in the following paragraphs, I will enumerate explicitly the insurmountable problems he must overcome to stay in. Key word in that sentence boys and girls: insurmountable.