Saturday, July 12, 2008

Cash pours in for McCain as campaign gathers strength

Every so often I read something in the paper and think, "I'm sorry, I just don't believe that". This is a case in point:

The US Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, is attracting millions more dollars in funding than expected, which could allow him to match the much-vaunted Barack Obama donation machine.

He is on course to raise $400m (£201m) for the November election, which he said would put him roughly level with Obama. McCain surprised US political pundits by raising $22m in June, his best showing since he launched his bid for the White House early last year.

The Republican base don't like him, the campaign he is waging is incomprehensible, so why in God's name would he be raising huge sums in finance?

And, of course, the same story has Obama's campaign financing on a downward trend:

Obama's campaign team has yet to post its fundraising figures for June. His fundraising has been on a downward trend: he raised $55m in February, $41m in March, $31m in April and $22m in May. The June figures are expected to reverse that trend but still fall significantly short of the total needed to meet election budget needs.

Obama's campaign team said yesterday that a Wall Street Journal report that he had raised $30m in June - $20m less than expected - was "way off the mark". A spokesman, Dan Pfeiffer, said: "Some in the press still haven't realised that anyone who is talking about numbers doesn't know what our numbers are."

It just seems that every single story which comes out tells the tale of how the current circumstances favour McCain over Obama. If Obama is going to hold a rally in front of 75,000 people, well that will make him seem like a rock star and "not serious" which, of course, will favour McCain.

The Republicans are feeding this stuff to the press and they are running with it. I'm taking all of this with a huge pinch of salt.

Click title for full article.

2 comments:

Cecilio Morales said...

This could just be the relatively fact-free Guardian. A Los Angeles Times story, for example, has a vastly different take.

Kel said...

Cecilieaux,

I'm glad you provided that link as I was starting to think that I was going off my head. I simply couldn't believe the Guardian story as it made no sense at all.

Although the article you link to doesn't mention finance, it does highlight the McCain campaign and the mess it is in, which is why I doubted the Guardian story in the first place.