Candidates Try Gimmicks In Late Fund-Raising Push
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WASHINGTON — Watching a debate and talking politics with a former president. Riding the campaign bus with a war hero. Winning a visit to your hometown from a TV star turned White House hopeful.
With the third-quarter money race winding down, the presidential candidates are pulling out all the stops to pack their campaign kitties for the final push to the first caucuses and primaries in January.
The days of a simple typewritten fund-raising appeal are long gone, replaced by ever more creative sales gimmicks aimed at encouraging supporters to reach for their wallets.
Senator Clinton’s campaign is offering donors the chance to watch a Democratic debate with her husband. Senator McCain is pushing a day-long ride on the “Straight Talk Express” with the Vietnam veteran. And Fred Thompson is promising to visit the town that sends him the most donations by midnight on Sunday, the third-quarter deadline.
On a certain level, the expanding bag of fund-raising tricks is intended to draw more Americans into the political process. But at heart it is a reflection of an intense nine-month-old primary race that is nearing its final act.
“This is insane,” a professor of political science at Baruch College, Douglas Muzzio, said. “This is constant, furious fund-raising.” The expense and length of the 2008 race is taking its toll on the candidates.
A former North Carolina senator, John Edwards, surprised the political world yesterday by announcing that he would participate in the federal public financing system. His campaign characterized the move as a principled decision by a candidate seeking to clean up politics. But the timing of the disclosure — it came three days before the end of a filing period — immediately prompted speculation that Mr. Edwards had fallen well short of his fund-raising goals and may even be short on cash.
The 2004 vice-presidential nominee had said earlier that he would not accept public matching funds because the system severely limits the amount of money a candidate can spend, all the way through the party conventions nearly a year from now. An aide said Mr. Edwards had raised $7 million for the third quarter, which would bring his total for the year to $30 million, which is a little more than half of what Senator Obama of Illinois raised in the first six months alone.
Mr. Edwards becomes the first leading Democratic candidate to opt into the public financing system. On the Republican side, Mr. McCain took steps toward accepting federal money over the summer following the near-collapse of his campaign amid a cash shortfall.
The Arizona senator is now trying to regroup, with a multipronged strategy combining message and fund-raising. In addition to offering a bus ride to anyone who donates to his campaign through the end of the third quarter on Sunday, Mr. McCain is running his first television ads. The spots, which will run statewide in New Hampshire, focus on the candidate’s military service in Vietnam and feature video clips of him as a prisoner of war at what became known as the “Hanoi Hilton.” By purchasing the ads now, the campaign is seeking to broaden Mr. McCain’s support in a crucial state while also showing potential donors that he can still run an effective campaign.
“It is another example that the campaign is moving forward and that we will have the resources to get our message across in the early states,” a spokeswoman, Brooke Buchanan, said.
Facing as much if not more scrutiny than Mr. McCain will be a former Tennessee senator, Fred Thompson, whose cash total is expected to provide a sense of how much support he has generated since officially jumping into the race for the Republican nomination earlier this month. Mr. Thompson is attending seven fund-raisers in three days, but he is also employing a gimmick of his own: “Hometown Hero,” a contest in which the town that sends in the most money this quarter will win a visit from the former “Law & Order” star.
On the Democratic side, the money race is the one area where Mr. Obama has managed to overtake Mrs. Clinton, raising $58.2 million to her $52 million for the year. In response, she is trotting out the party’s chief fund-raising juggernaut: President Clinton. In separate e-mails in recent days, the campaign has offered donors the opportunity to watch an upcoming Democratic debate with the former president. The only matter in question appears to be the menu. Mr. Clinton promised a “big bowl of chips” in his e-mail, while Mrs. Clinton yesterday asked potential contest winners to make sure the renowned junk-food lover gobbles “carrots, not chips.”
Of course, not all candidates are going to extreme lengths in their quest for last-minute dollars. Senator Dodd of Connecticut went for short, simple, and, well, random. In a terse, 53-word e-mail yesterday, he urged supporters to “chip in $23” for his campaign. Why $23? “Why not $23?” a campaign spokeswoman said.