Hidden Truth - Obama Is Outraising Romney, But Not Romney, RNC, Adelson AND Koch
The media has been happily pushing the narrative of Mitt Romney as this amazing fundraiser with the Romney campaign embracing this idea and claiming that the money is reflective of people flocking to Romney's "cause." Yet, the hidden truth behind the numbers is that President Obama's campaign committee is actually outraising Romney's campaign committee by a significant amount!
However, rather than report this, the media combines the funds raised by each campaign committee along with various other fundraising devices that Romney has utilized to enable to rich contributors to circumvent limits on the amounts that any one person can contribute directly to candidate. Worse, some reports also throw in the amounts that are contributed by SuperPACS such as those controlled by Sheldeon Adelson and the Koch Brothers.
So, the truth is that President Obama is actually raising money at a rate similar to his record setting 2008 campaign. Indeed, President's Obama has raised significantly million more in July 2012 than July 2008. Yet, there is a real gap because Romney is being carried by SuperPACs and rich donors who are utilizing various tricks to circumvent the limits on direct contributions to Romney's campaign committee.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/barack-obama-fundraising-2012_n_1721176.html
Recent media reports have said that Romney has caught up with the president in fundraising, but they involve a slightly different comparison -- between all the political committees raising money for each presidential candidate. In Romney's case, that means also counting checks to the Republican National Committee and a joint fundraising vehicle, Romney Victory, that will send millions of dollars to a host of state-level party committees. Romney's official campaign committee has never beaten Obama's in fundraising for any period of time in the 2012 election cycle.
Both campaigns combine their own fundraising with the amounts raised by their respective party committee and joint fundraising vehicles in their press releases announcing monthly totals. This gives the impression of much larger war chests than the official campaign committees actually have.
It is true that, for all intents and purposes, money sent to the Republican and Democratic national committees will be spent to elect their respective nominees. And Romney and the RNC are currently outraising Obama's team. This was noted in a Tuesday email from Obama to his supporters: "Over the past two months, we have been outraised by our opponents." In a Monday email solicitation, Vice President Joe Biden raised the same worry in stark terms: "If we don't win this election, it will be because we didn't close the spending gap when we could."
But federal rules that limit how the parties can spend their money, particularly on television ads, force the candidate committees to raise huge sums for themselves.
This article also touches on how Obama's campaign committe is actually out-raising Romney, but Romney is relying on various tricks and loopholes to draw more money from corporations and the wealthy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/fundraiser-in-chief-mitt-romney-vs-barack-obama/2012/08/07/11413e38-dfc4-11e1-8fc5-a7dcf1fc161d_blog.html
In 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama raked in $750 million, shattering fundraising records and earning a reputation as the single best fundraiser in the history of American politics.
Now, Obama faces the very real prospect that he will be outraised (and outspent) in this election by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
So how does Romney’s fundraising to date stack up with that of Obama during his 2008 campaign? We break it down after the jump.
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Obama the candidate has continued to outraise Romney the candidate this cycle. (Check out this great Paul Blumenthal analysis.) But when you add in affiliated committees, Romney is opening up a sizable lead.