« Hillary's New Ad On Health Care With 9/11 Imagery | Main | Giuliani Has 16m In The Bank » Romney Writes Himself An 8.5 Million Dollar Check04 Oct 2007 12:29 pm Mitt Romney's nightmare continues. He's writing himself another large check to keep his campaign on budget. He also managed to raise an impressive 10 million dollars from others. Romney's spending is lavish. He has 9m in the bank now. (In comparison, John Edwards has 12m without his federal cash infusion). Romney has raised 45m from 100,000 donors and. written himself 17m. So his burn rate -- less his own money -- exceeds about 119 percent. Comments (12)
When you spend less than you raise thats called a surplus. something the federal government hasnt managed to do in a long time. personally I want someone who spends less than he raises. 
Peter,
No, that's not how I interpret Marc's post. He says that Romney has $9 million in the bank. I assume that means $9 million *total* in the bank, from all sources, which would mean that he's spent $53 million of the total $62 million his campaign has taken in (which includes the $17 million from his own pocket). That's an incredibly amount of money to have already spent (probably a record for the first 9 months of the year before the election), but you can't say that it hasn't paid off. He's now leading in IA and NH, and is quite competitive in MI, so his $ has gotten him something. And as long as Romney is willing to continue writing his campaign these big checks, he might as well keep spending lavishly, as he's in no danger of going broke.
llarsen, check your math. Romney "raised" $44,432,350 ($35,487,322 DONATED/$8,945,028 LOANED) and he spent $32,310,796 of it by the end of Q2. For Q3 he got aprox. $10,000,000 in donation and loaned himself another $8,500,000 for a total "raised" of aprox. $63,000,000. But he also SPENT aprox. $21,000,000 in Q3 bringing his total spending to $53,000,000!!! He's got about $10,000,000 in the bank but he owes $18,500,000, making his campaign $8,500,000 in the RED. Funny how that's the exact amount he just gave. He put's Bush's liberal fiscal spending policies to shame!
Discussions of burn-rates are meaningless when it comes to Romney. Romney's pumped in $17M of his own dough, so far? Great. There's at least another $20M-$30M soon to follow. And he has a theoretical capacity to pump in up to $200M more. The normal campaign budgeting rules don't apply when you're a self-funder.
I think everyone can agree that it takes money to win elections. I think partially funding his own campaign though helps to keep his money clean, or his agenda further away from special interests. Percentagewise, how much of the financial donations toward Hillary's campaign is from special interest groups?
Why does everyone seem so negative about Romney's cash? He's supposedly so far from the nomination that he can't get out of the teens percentage-wise, yet he manages to raise almost as much as Giuliani (counting only others' money). He'll get more donations soon, I can promise you that much. Give the guy the credit he deserves. He's received bad press for most of his campaign, yet he's able to raise a TON of money ever quarter. I mean, the press have even descended to attempting to discredit Romney through looking at ancestors who lived in the 1850s. Come on!!!
The purpose of a political campaign is quite different from that of the federal government. The goal is not to run a surplus, the goal is to win. What is relevant is whether Romney is using his money wisely, since this is a skill that would translate into his management of federal budgets. I don't think anyone would argue that Romney has come a long way in that he started his campaign as a relative unknown, compared to Giuliani or McCain, and is now firmly entrenched as one of the only three realistic candidates who can win the Republican nomination, barring some sort of miraculous shakeup. This would seem to indicate that Romney has used his money wisely and is getting a positive return on investment. Would any of his competitors have made it as far as he has with the same amount of money or would they have had to spend a lot more? Romney is a guy who knows how to manage money. Looking at his professional career and his personal bank account should make that obvious. That doesn't mean he wouldn't spend oodles of money as President, but the real question is whether he can make government "profitable" or in other words, generate consistent surpluses and pay off debt. If he spends large amounts of money in the process it's immaterial as long as he brings in more than he spends, and I think he knows how to do this better than anyone else due to his experience in the private sector. For me, I could care less what he's spending on his campaign. If he wins, can anyone say it wasn't worth it?
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He's raised 45 million and spent 36 MILLION of it ALREADY? Gee...I sure don't want THAT guy running the Federal Budget.
http://www.newyorkforhuckabee.blogspot.com
Posted by Peter | October 4, 2007 1:01 PM