Hillary Clinton Spends $19 million
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The outlay is nearly four times what Clinton spent in the first three months of her last presidential campaign, when she faced a far more competitive primary race against then-Sen. Barack Obama.
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During that 2008 campaign, Clinton and her team faced charges from donors that they were wasting money on ineffective strategic choices…This time, her staff has emphasized its “cheapskate” mentality — particularly to contributors. At her first national finance meeting in May, top donors were instructed to purchase their own lunches and fund their own transportation to various gatherings in Brooklyn.
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During the first three months of her 2008 bid, Clinton spent 14 percent of the $36 million she raised, according to FEC documents. In the launch of this campaign, she’s burned though nearly 40 percent of what she has taken in.
To be fair, everything costs more than it did in 2007.
Somewhat more interesting are her revenues. A couple of weeks ago there were reports that she’d received close to 500,000 donations and the average donation was less than $100, Slight adjustment:
Her campaign also reported that Clinton received more than 250,000 contributions, with an average donation of $144.89. About 17 percent of her contributions were $200 or less.
No figure on the number of donors. But even if contributors are structuring their contributions (i.e. ten $100 contributions instead of one $1,000), her donor base is still better than it was last time around when a high percentage maxxed out with one donation. Although she still has $100,000 campaign bundlers.
By comparison, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has fueled an insurgent challenge to Clinton with small donations. He pulled in more than $15.2 million through the end of June, and three-quarters of his donations were $200 or less.
The Guardian: Sanders FEC filing:
His campaign – keen to spin the case that his campaign is spurred by grassroots backers rather than big-money donors – released a statement saying more than 284,000 individual donors gave an average contribution of just over $35 each. Or as Sanders put it: “Our campaign is a strong grassroots movement supported by middle-class Americans from working families, not billionaires trying to buy elections.”
Jeb Bush, by comparison, raised just $368,023 from small donors.
Records show that Bernie 2016 has a not-too-shabby cash-on-hand figure, either: $12,161,737.67. That’s more than Bush, although the former Florida governor has deliberately encouraged supporters to direct their donations to his preferred Super Pac, Right to Rise USA.
Once again Clinton is being bested on the number of donors by a competitor. Too soon to tell if Bernie is a better money manager because Clinton’s campaign is more mature and his has barely started.
(Sorry — I do find some of this campaign wonky stuff interesting.)
Update:
91% of all @HillaryClinton donations were $100 or less. Thanks so much people.
UPDATE – FEC filings:Rand Paul. Contributions: $5.3 million. Transfer (from Senate campaign coffers?): 1.6 million. Spent (including unpaid debts) $3.5 million. Net cash on hand $2.4 million.
(will add others as I pull them up)
UPDATE 2 — additional FEC filings:
The Master List of everyone that has filed Click on the candidate’s name to get the detail. (I’m not compulsive enough to look at more than a few and then not much more than the summaries.) A few observations:
Ben Carson: his expenditure pages are a few million dollars short of the $5 million he reported spending to date. Ben Carson Burned a Ton of Cash on Live Music and Private Jets. To date, his campaign operation is a total joke.
Ted Cruz. Practically a blank page for $5.8 million in expenditures.
Hillary Clinton. Her expenditures page is blank. No shortage of $2,700 maxi donors in her contributions detail.
Rand Paul — based on distributions — has a campaign operation in place. Personnel heavily concentrated in DC and VA, but has people in place in fourteen other states.
Rick Perry raised $1 million and change.
Ted Cruz $14 million.
Rubio $12 million
Christie $0
Chafee – change.
Hillary’s shop:
H-2-Oh Yeah! Cup Pack
Would have recommended that the cups were gold colored.
Ted Cruz more than Bernie, that’s scary.
Cruz has had a three-four month running head start. His SuperPac money is scary (as is Jeb(!)’s, Clinton’s, etc.) — not his campaign fundraising.
This snapshot of the candidates’ fundraising prowess is interesting but preliminary. It’s the third quarter (9/30) that will allow for informed projections. One component that is difficult to assess early on is how much it costs to raise all those dollars.
Just got an e-mail from Bernie’s campaign that said that more people contributed to him than any other candidate. Does the number of supporters even matter any more after the majority are brain washed by 30 seconds spots repeated three times at every commercial break?
Number of supporters most definitely matters. Team Clinton is being a bit coy on that point and they had a big push for token donations — $1 and $5 — towards the end of the last quarter. Regardless, she is doing much better at this point on that measure than she did in 2008.
Sanders does lead on the number of low dollar (<$200) contributors. By a lot in comparison to most of the candidates and if not by a goodly amount in comparison with Clinton, it’s a stronger donor base. iirc her total from <$200 donors was $8 million and Bernie’s was $12 million.
A few reasons why I assess his small donor base as stronger. First the lead time for her candidacy was long and she began her campaign weeks before Sanders. So, her enthusiastic supporters should have been ready to go without more than a token $1 donation. Second, Sanders didn’t try to inflate the number of his donors by exhorting them to make a token donation. Thus, he received from enthusiastic supporters whatever they could afford during those few weeks. Third, Sander’s donors are more likely to come up with a like amount or more in the next two quarters because they want to know that they are all Sanders has. The $1 token donors to Clinton are less likely to dig deeper considering how much she and her SuperPac have collected.
That said, Sanders’ current donor base is too small. Those inclined to get on board should do so sooner rather than later. (Assuming team Sanders has excellent money management skills and have already built the donation collection system that can be scaled up at little additional cost.) Local offices must be opened. Early ad buys are cheaper (assuming the other candidates haven’t already purchased most of them in Iowa, NH, and SC). He also needs to hire the best experience local talent possible and that’s easier if they’re guaranteed a job through the first three caucus and/or primaries along with a commitment to redeploy them if successful and their skills are appropriate.
I’m a bit uncomfortable with his lead campaign guy. Worked for Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. So, he has been successful in primaries — before CU. However, neither team Gore nor team Kerry ran “knock your socks off” primary campaigns. Weak fundraising, and the candidates were poorly positioned after securing the nomination. Also, both of them played dirty to win the nomination. Of course, Sanders doesn’t feel entitled to the nomination as Gore and Kerry did and it’s not his style to play dirty. OTOH, his campaign guy may know “the enemy” better than most and therefore, can anticipate and deflect their moves.
Bottom line, Bernie’s a good candidate, but that may only be 20% of the battle. He needs a great campaign team and a huge army of donors and committed volunteers.
Another note — in being frugal with campaign spending, Clinton has enlisted a large contingent of unpaid interns. Burnout rate for full time and no pay is high.
O’Malley $2 million
I think he’s dead. he was too cautious coming out of the gate. If you’re not a national figure you have to jump in with both feet to get noticed.
TexasTribune
To date:
Raised $15 million ($10 million in 2nd quarter)
Spent $5.5 million
Cash $8.5 million
The kicker:
2nd Quarter:
Raised: $8.9 million ($2 million in <$200 donations)
Spent: $2.3 million
Cash on hand: $9.9 million ($3.3 million carry-over from 1st quarter.
Jeb(!) $103 million
Cruz $37 million
Clinton $23 million
Perry $17 million
Rubio $16 million
Christie $11 million
If voters really detested the CU corporate money, they would refuse to vote for anyone collecting million/billionaire bucks.
Jindal
2000 people donors total $580,000
Fake persons $8,600,000
By fake persons, I assume you mean corporations, not deals like nuns writing phony checks.
Yes. Money laundered through real people to the candidates are straw people. (The wealthy have been adept at getting all their close relatives and friends to max out on donations, but CU frees them to simply write one big check to the SuperPac.)
I’m sure that team Clinton is doing a much better job at vetting their bundlers. She had the exact same problem in 2008 as Bill had in 1996. However, just because they got caught doesn’t mean that it wasn’t common among all the candidates.
Don’t apologize, Marie. We’re all interested in the truth aren’t we?
It really is all about the money, not the high – flying rhetoric.
The real question is – who stays bought and who really does “protect and serve?”
CU does make it easier to see who is bought. And of course, we know all of them stay bought.
Those enormous pots of SuperPac money may mean that contenders stay in the race much longer than they once did. Would be surprised if they haven’t figured out a way to use SuperPac money to refill an empty campaign fund. (More efficient than a candidate having to scramble for personal cash to dump in. Less embarrassing than Kerry having to get that bank loan.)
Bloomberg report.
Dr. Ben raised almost as much as Jeb(!) and more than all the other GOP wannabes, but he may not have a SuperPac of any substance. (The total raised figures include transfers from other campaign chests — looks like $2 million for Rubio, $1.5 million for Sanders, and the other undefined.) Dr. Ben also spent more than most and doubt that it was for building a campaign operation — other than a fundraising machine.
Trump didn’t raise anything — that $1.9 million is a loan from himself to his campaign.
What we’ll learn this election cycle is how to evaluate SuperPac totals in the early going. How quickly it disappears and how effective it is. My guess at this point is the team Jeb(!) SuperPac is well organized — possibly having already made ad buys.
NYTimes chart. Has some information not reported by others but doesn’t include some information others reported; so, probably incomplete.
For example — listing for Clinton only shows $16 million in SuperPac money and other reports are saying $23 million.
The “maxxed out” graphic is interesting. Jindal, Bush, and Perry have a few wealthy friends that really, really like them. (Perry’s total numbers are similar to his 2012 numbers.) Bush just has more of those wealthy friends.
Perry, a “useful idiot”.
I once knew fairly well three men that maxed out for Perry in 2012. They are tight business associates. One of the three (by far the wealthiest) later maxed out for Romney. Honestly have no idea why they would throw good money to an empty suit. It also probably wouldn’t compute for them how someone as good at business as me could be a socialist. Common ground is that professionally we’re all ethical.
The big bucks are needed for the media buys in a marketing-framed campaign. Change the model of campaigning and cut the media and professional consultants out and you can get by with substantially less money and still win. That’s the challenge out there, because progressives cannot outspend all the billionaires.
But of course. However, no ads buys is not a viable strategy. Smarter and earlier buys can hold the costs down to a reasonable level. Also, high quality ads. Most are dreadful and a waste of money.
Unfortunately, they seem to work.
That’s not entirely clear. Candidate A with 100 crappy TV ads doesn’t necessarily beat candidate B that runs 50 crappy TV ads.
Variables:
name ID of candidate six months before the election
free TV air time (print space still has some power; imho internet space has yet to materialize as a general public factor)
quality of the candidate
quality of the ads
The TV ads that appear to be most effective are the ones that seek to increase an opponent’s net negatives. Doesn’t matter if the content is true or highly misleading.
The so-called positives ads are by and large boring and unmemorable. Very rare are positive ads that are clever, amusing, quirky, etc. and also clearly attach to the candidate and his/her name. Would probably place Joni Ernst’s pig castration ad in the quirky category even though it was visually boring.
” The TV ads that appear to be most effective are the ones that seek to increase an opponent’s net negatives. Doesn’t matter if the content is true or highly misleading.
The so-called positives ads are by and large boring and unmemorable. Very rare are positive ads that are clever, amusing, quirky, etc. and also clearly attach to the candidate and his/her name. Would probably place Joni Ernst’s pig castration ad in the quirky category even though it was visually boring.”
Agree 100%
So, Sanders has to go amusing, clever, and quirky. He has an advantage in doing so because it is consistent with who he is.
Does Clinton go negative in the primaries if challenged by Sanders?
Do rightwing interest groups/pacs interfere in the Democratic primary or keep their powder dry for the general election?
Good questions. Very good questions. Going negative is a natural for Clinton, but won’t she look like she’s beating up on a kindly grandfather? In a debate I think he would eat her up, but very urbanely, like kindly Grandpa admonishing an unruly child.
If he ever gets to debate Trump, only totally brain-dead yahoos would vote for Trump, although Faux will declare Trump the winner.
Way too high risk for Clinton to officially go negative on Bernie. (It didn’t help her in 2008 to hint that she wasn’t sure Obama was a Christian and born in Hawaii.) But expect her gaggle of sleazy operatives to mount the effort. Where team Clinton screwed up in 2008 was to see Edwards as the major impediment to her nomination. A young, essentially unknown, black man with a funny name didn’t have a chance.
Major difference between 2008 and 2016 is that the Clintons didn’t control the DNC in 2008. Check out the change in the DNC debates.
Clinton fares better when up against a brawler. Would have done fine against Edwards.
My guess is that the GOP sees Sanders as about as viable for the DEM nomination as Dennis Kuchinich and therefore, won’t waste any resources to tarnish him during the next few months.
Background story:
Towards the end of a business dinner after the wait person had offered dessert and we all declined, one of the men said, “What I could go for is a big dish of Cherry Garcia.”
Another man piped up with “Have you had Phish Food? It’s amazing.” He proceeded to describe it in detail and concluded with “The little fudge fishes are to die for.”
The first guy said, “Now you’ve done it. I have to stop at the store on the way home and get some.”
My giggling interrupted their tete-a-tete rhapsodizing over Ben&Jerry ice cream. They didn’t know what was so funny. In part it was that I’d never seen men speak this way about a dessert. Women and chocolates, yes. Men, no. But I had to explain the imagery of a TV ad that their conversation had put in my head: Same conversation but held by a couple of biker dudes.
—-
Sanders’ Ad — Rough draft:
Cast:
Quincy: Fifty something. Occupation unidentified other than “white collar.”
Angela: Forty something.
Lowell: Thirty something. Longish hair — slightly rough looking. Occupation “blue collar.”
Counterman: Older
We see three cyclists (motorcyles or bicycles — motorcyles work better) riding down a road.
Quincy yells, “Let’s go get a cool one”
Cut to backs of three cyclists, still helmeted and jacketed, entering what could be a bar as there is a long bar countertop and bar stools in front of them and a counterman behind the bar.
Counterman says, “Hi guys. The regular?”
Angela, removing helmet to display long red/blonde hair, says, “Make mine a double.”
Cut to cyclists now seated at table, unhelmeted, and jackets open.
Lowell, shrugging off his jacket to reveal a nice physique, “I’m about ready to try something different and new.”
Angela: “I hear you. Almost lost to that pothole today. Might have to give up riding if the roads get any worse.”
Quincy: shirt and tie visible,: “And the bridges.”
Lowell: “I need a union. My kid sister needs a job.”
Angela: “My kid can’t pay his college loans.”
Quincy: “And we’re the lucky ones; at least we have jobs.”
Angela: “For now.”
Quincy: “We all need more financial security and not the ups and downs at the whims of, what do we call them?”
(counterman with tray visible in distance approaching table)
Angela: “Banksters.”
Lowell: “The proper terms are hucksters and oligarchs.”
(dish of ice cream placed on table in front of Lowell who jabs his spoon into it)
Lowell (continues): “Or dirty rotten scoundrels — if you prefer.”
Quincy looks toward counterman who we’ve only seen the midsection of along with his tray and the dishes on it: “What do you think Ben”
(camera pulls back to frame Ben) “Check out my button.”
Zoom in on : “Bernie 2016” button
Legend: “Nuff Said”
Show “Bernie 2016” logo again with voice over, “I’m Bernie Sanders and I approve this message.”