The financial tide has turned against Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his key allies, who spent more than they brought in and were outraised by President Obama during the month of August, according to disclosures filed Thursday.
Romney’s presidential campaign committee raised nearly $67 million last month — a strong figure — but spent about the same amount building its campaign organization and responding to a barrage of attack ads from Obama and his allies. Even so, the campaign spent just $13.7 million on ads, which was less than the $15 million it spent in July.
So what's a good businessman to do?
Why give out bonuses of course.
Mitt Romney’s campaign handed out more than $200,000 in bonuses last month to senior staffers, according to new disclosure records filed Thursday.
Richard Beeson, Romney’s national political director, received a $37,500 payment on Aug. 31 in addition to his salary, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.
In addition, records show at least six other top staffers each received $25,000 bonuses on the same date: campaign manager Matt Rhoades, general counsel Kathryn Biber, policy advisor Lanhee Chen, communications director Gail Gitcho, digital director Zach Moffatt and advisor Gabriel Schoenfeld. Two other employees received $10,000 bonuses.
Business as usual on Wall Street.
Romeny had the same problem in the primary season, as his appeal is limited to a select group of wealthy doners who all contribute the maximum allowable, giving him an early surge in fundraising, but then, since their contribution limits are all tapped out, leads to a stall since his support isn't very broad-based like Obama's.
ReplyDeleteStill, he does have the advantage of the untraceable, unlimited Super-PAC spending on attack ads where those wealthy doners can blow millions more beyond their usual campaign contribution limits, so I expect a lot of ugliness in the next six weeks. I honestly feel sorry for the poor folks living in the swing states about to be assaulted by those ads.
The ads become less and less effective has time goes on. The "election" may be 40 some days away but most states have unrestricted absentee voting and many have early voting. By tomorrow half of the states will be accepting ballots. In Oregon and Washington we don't even have an election day, it's all done by mail and we will receive our ballots in about two and a half weeks.
ReplyDelete