No wonder Bush needs $200 million. In just a couple of months, with zero campaigning (other than fundraising) and zero paid media, his campaign has
spent $15 million.
From a nondescript high-rise looking down on the capital's monuments, Bush's re-election effort has already spent more than $15 million preparing for next year. That includes, among other things, paying a staff that now numbers about 140 and rent for the two floors of office space in Arlington, Va.
The staff represents the public voice and face of Bush's re-election effort at a time when he doesn't want to be visibly pulled into the campaign. Campaign officials talk to journalists and talk-show hosts around the country, while Bush sometimes recruits relatives for other political chores.
The president tapped his sister, Dorothy "Doro" Bush Koch, to go New Hampshire last month to register her older brother to run in the state's Republican presidential primary.
Campaign officials shuttle regularly to the White House for one-one-one meetings with Bush officials, and small groups of high-ranking campaign and White House officials meet periodically to talk tactics. Bush political adviser Karl Rove and re-election manager Ken Mehlman talk every day by phone.
Let's hope his people keep spending money like drunken sailors (or, like, the Bush Administration). I am ready to believe that $100 million in Democratic hands will go further than $200 million in Bush's hands.