Several commentators have noted Richie Romney's very light campaigning schedule since the GOPer convention. Even some GOPers seem puzzled by his forgoing campaigning in swing states for events to raise money. They, along with everyone else, figure he's got enough cash stashed.
But this piece in the New York Times casts some doubt. It turns out that the R campaign is still being outspent in several swing states by the Obama campaign. In some cases that even figures in the big bucks from his billionaire superpacs. Why?
One major reason appears to be that Mr. Romney’s campaign finances have been significantly less robust than recent headlines would suggest. Much of the more than $300 million the campaign reported raising this summer is earmarked for the Republican National Committee, state Republican organizations and Congressional races, limiting the money Mr. Romney’s own campaign has to spend.
It may be that all the money we've been hearing about is more Romney smoke and mirrors. They weren't raising money fast enough in the summer and had to borrow $20 million until he was formally nominated. That freed up the funds he'd storehoused for the general election. Still--
Yet at the same time Romney aides worked hard to project the image of a fund-raising machine far outpacing the president’s. Romney aides released informal dollar figures that lumped several pools of money — some available for his use, others not — into a single figure, providing a perception greater than reality: $106 million in June and $101 million in July, far more than Mr. Obama and the Democrats. Yet those figures obscured the fact that most of the money Mr. Romney was raising was reserved for those other political entities like the Republican National Committee.
Moreover there are all kinds of constraints on piles of this money. Not so much for the Obama campaign's cash cache however. It turns out his secret weapon is...me. And other small donors:
A closer look at Mr. Romney’s own filings revealed that Mr. Obama, while trailing in overall party fund-raising, was pulling far more money than Mr. Romney into his campaign account, the most useful and flexible dollars a candidate has to spend, in part because of strong collection from small donors who could give again and again without hitting federal limits.
Most of the money that is being spent and will be spent in this election is coming from the billionaire pacs and primarily for Romney. So it's not like that advantage has gone away. The R-leaning Politico says some questions about finances will be answered by the end of Thursday when new numbers are released. Nobody is yet saying that the Romneyryanrove marriage is over. But if the GOPer panic is genuine--and downballot candidates continue to distance themselves from Romney--that could change.
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