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Fred's Fundraising

by Ryan Sager
Mon, 30 Jul 2007 at 6:12 PM
updated Mon, 30 Jul 2007 at 5:13 PM

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I may characterize Fred Thompson's $3 million haul for June as "not great." But let me qualify that in one important way:

* "Not great" doesn't = "very bad." $3 million is a decent number, on track roughly with how John McCain did each month of the last quarter. But, with a much lower burn rate than Mr. McCain, Mr. Thompson is building up a war chest that could run a credible campaign, come the expected formal announcement in September.

* You don't want your fundraising to be roughly on track with that of John McCain. (See: Watch, McCain Death.)

* Thompson boosters have been saying that Republican fundraising — in comparison to the Democrats — has been slow because donors were waiting for a Thompson-like candidate to jump in. Well, Mr. Thompson's essentially in, and the money is nothing spectacular.

* The argument that this can't be judged like an active campaign is convenient for the Thompson folks, but it doesn't hold much water.

* The argument that Mr. Thompson's fundraising in June of 2007 should be compared to Mr. McCain's or Rudy Giuliani's in November-December of 2006 likewise doesn't hold much water. Mr. McCain, again, is hardly the benchmark for healthy fundraising. And at the end of 2006, no one believed Mr. Giuliani would run (save, say, this correspondent) — people hardly believed it until he actually announced in February. Meanwhile, no one doubts Mr. Thompson is getting in. It's just a question of when.

* Lastly, the argument that they're just holding back because this is a "testing the waters" committee — and to do otherwise would run afoul of the law — is just silly. If their burn rate is really less than 20%, then they're already raising more money than they need. They would have loved to have blown us all way with $5-6 million. (They were certainly happy to crow when their first 48 hours online looked so good.) They didn't.

None of this means the Thompson campaign can't go on to do fantastically. But the early signs are below the wild expectations that took hold in May and June. July and August may be long months for the Thompson campaign.

Related Topics: GOP Primary

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