President Barack Obama promotes the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in Ohio.
(Pete Souza/White House)
It's going to take a crap-ton of unregulated Super PAC money for Republicans to
close the gap to President Barack Obama.
President Barack Obama hauled in more than $68 million for his campaign and the Democratic Party during the final three months of 2011, a show of force that allows him to compete — for now at least — in the new reality of freewheeling outside political groups.
The latest infusion of money, announced Thursday, adds up to more than $220 million in 2011 for the president's re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee, putting Obama far ahead of other Republican presidential candidates.
Of that money, $42 million went to the Obama campaign, the other $24 million to the DNC—which is essentially an extension of the presidential effort.
Republicans, suffering through their primary, are lagging. Romney raised just over half Obama's haul, $24 million, last quarter. He has raised $56 million total this campaign. Doing the math, that's about a quarter what Obama has raised. And, of course, he's having to spend much of that to win his primary, while Obama gets to hoard most of his.
Now don't be too impressed with Romney's haul. His $56 million raised in 2011 looks good compared only to John McCain, who raised $40 million in 2007. George W. Bush raised $69 million all the way back in 1999, and that's not adjusting for inflation. In 2007, Hillary Clinton raised $118 million, while Obama raised $104 million.
And while Obama is raising the bulk of his cash from small dollar donors he can tap repeatedly, Romney can't say the same. Indeed, Mitten avoided the topic altogether when announcing his latest fundraising haul, but analysis from the first three quarters of 2011 shows the disparity. While Obama has received 46 percent of his money from donors giving less than $200, that number is just nine percent for Romney.
Thus, Republicans will lean heavily on their Super PACs to pump in unlimited, unregulated cash from their Big Business and Wall Street allies like the Koch brothers. Karl Rove's American Crossroads alone promises to raise $200 million this cycle, and they won't be the only game in town.
Yet I'd worry less about the president, who has the fundraising base to compete against Republican billionaires, and more about Senate and House candidates who won't have that level of Super PAC support. The biggest impact of the Citizens United decision will be felt at the congressional level.
