With the Iowa caucus only a day away, the focus soon will be on the real story: How will campaign money determine what happens next. With some frontrunners already leaking their fourth-quarter fundraising totals, the presidential race has generated about a half-a-billion dollars a full 10 months before the general election--most of that coming in large amounts from wealthy interests.
Candidates are not required to file official reports with the U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC) until the end of January. But candidates know that the rules of the "wealth primary" mean that whatever their fate with voters in Iowa, they need to try to spin the money story to show they can last the distance and overwhelm their opponents for the February primaries.
The Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns have said that they raised $20 million each during the last quarter, bringing their campaign totals to about $100 million apiece. If they win, they will likely claim the victory will boost their fundraising even more. If they lose, they will surely say that their pot of money will ensure their viability into February.
Mitt Romney, the leader in the Republican money chase, with $63 million raised in the first three quarters, has not released his fourth-quarter numbers but told reporters that he had made more personal contributions to his campaign. "[W]e're not going to get into the numbers probably until sometime in the middle of the month," the Boston Globe reports him saying. "Right now, we're focused on the voters." In other words, post-Iowa, the focus will turn to money.
If John Edwards or Mike Huckabee win in Iowa, it will be tempting for political wags to say that money didn't matter. After all, Edwards, who announced that the raised about $4 million in the fourth quarter, will have raised about $44 million if you include his federal matching funds, less than half the amount of his leading Democratic rivals.
And Mike Huckabee, who has said he raised about $5 million online during the fourth quarter on top of the $2.4 million he raised during the first three quarters, is still far behind nearly everybody else in the Republican field. After all he's contending with Rudolph Giuliani ($47.3 million, first three quarters), and Sen. John McCain ($32 million, first three quarters), Ron Paul (estimated 2007 take: $28 million), and Fred Thompson ($12.8 million, first three quarters).
With so little cash comparatively, even if they were to win in Iowa, the resulting boost they would get in fundraising would still make it very tough for Edwards and Huckabee to compete for a large share of the delegates chosen in the 28 states holding primaries or caucuses in the next 33 days.
Finally, for candidates who lag in fundraising, such as Biden and Dodd, a poor showing in Iowa will leave them without the funds or momentum to compete further. Those who drop out will surely cite money as a factor.
Meanwhile, it's important to remember where all this cash comes from: wealthy interests. Wall Street, pharmaceutical companies, and the oil and gas industry are among the biggest backers of the presidential candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And despite claims that small donor internet giving was changing the political landscape, the candidates collectively raised more than 80 percent of their money in contributions of more than $200 during the first three quarters of the year, according to the Campaign Finance Institute.
With an 80 percent increase in 2007 from the amount of money raised in all of 2003, we're well on our way to a $1 billion presidential election. Unless there's a change, in the future candidates will have to rely more and more on well-connected campaign bundlers, personal wealth, and the wealthy elite to finance their campaigns.
Fair Elections, or full public financing of elections, would change elections so that candidates could concentrate on voters rather than donors. Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) are the lead sponsors of the Fair Elections Now Act, legislation modeled on successful public financing systems in Arizona, Connecticut and Maine. The Presidential Public Funding Act of 2007 would address many of the deficiencies of the ailing presidential partial public financing system.