Explaining The GOP’s Fund Raising Hole

The fact that the Republican:  Party is having a hard time raising money has been much remarked upon. So has the amount they’ve been spending to do it:

Both the national Democratic and Republican party committees spend about two-thirds of the money they take in on the care and comfort of committee staffs and on efforts to raise more funds, with lavish spending on limousines, expensive hotels, meals and tips, an analysis of the latest financial disclosure data shows.

…The nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, in an analysis done at the request of The Post, calculated, however, that administrative and fundraising expenses consumed about $60 million of Democratic revenue in this cycle through the end of February, or 59 percent of total revenue that exceeded $100 million. For Republicans, the amount exceeded $74 million, or 68 percent of $109 million in revenue.

First of all, I’m not going to tell you that the GOP is running a tight ship and isn’t wasting:  a:  dime : because I’m 100% sure that’s not true. On the other hand, are their numbers way out of line with what Democrats are raising given the situation? No.

Why? There are at least three reasons.

As Bush proved when he was in office, the presidency is a fund raising cash machine. Any day of the week, Obama can, if he so desires, head somewhere like Gloria Estefan’s house and rake in a cool 2.5 million dollars from people willing to drop $30,000 for a few minutes of face time with the President. That brings in a lot of money for the party.

Secondly — and perhaps most importantly — the Democrats run everything. They have the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. If you’re a businessman and you want to keep the government off your back, you bundle money and you send it to key Democrats. If you bundle up enough money and send it to the right people, yes, they will seriously consider carving out an exemption in their next bill for you. In other words, a lot of these businesses are paying out protection money — and, : yes, I mean exactly the same sort of protection money they’d pay to the mob. It’s just legal when Congress does it.

Last but not least, on the whole, Democrats have a better relationship with their base. Since that’s the case, liberals feel more comfortable giving them money. On the other hand, the GOP backs people like Dede Scozzafava:  and : Charlie Crist over the objections of conservatives. Then they wonder why the Right doesn’t want to give them money.

All of these things add up and unfortunately, it will help the Democratic Party limit their losses in 2010.

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