Democrats Close Financial Gap With Republicans, Led by Senators

[sabra]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=ar6wZ4gZuYr4&refer=us

Democrats Close Financial Gap With Republicans, Led by Senators

Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Democrats, seeking to regain control of the U.S. Congress this November, are narrowing their fund- raising gap with the Republicans.

Democratic Party election committees raised $143 million in 2005, up from $128 million four years earlier, led by a record amount collected by the Senate campaign organization. Republican committees raised $206 million, down from $234 million in 2001, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The Democrats also reported $47 million in the bank at the start of 2006, $18 million less than the Republicans. That compares with a $37 million difference at the start of 2002, the last year congressional elections were held when there was no presidential race.

``It will give the Democrats a boost, even psychological,'' said Herbert Alexander, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and a campaign-finance specialist. ``It's always nice to have money and it's always nice to be able to spend it in meaningful ways that will help the party win seats.''

[Lloyd Braun]

1. but I thought we were behind the repubs in fundrasing!?!? :-)

Way to go.... we need to raise TWICE the amount the repubs do.

[wakeme2008]

2. But but but DEAN is a failure at raising money

I am sure I have seen that in some reports :grr:

[tularetom]

3. No, no that cannot be

I have heard several "Democrats" say that since Howard Dean became chairman of the DNC, fund raising has gone into the toilet. Surely James Carville and Paul Beluga could not be wrong could they? They are always the "liberal" spokesmen for Dems on all the TV shows after all.:sarcasm:

[Kagemusha]

4. Welcome, Dean bashers!

And your response to this is? :)

[second edition]

5. Does anyone know if these funds are actually raised through the

DNC or are they raised through Senate and House Commitees? I am not our to bash Dean. I just think we should be accurate and give credit where credit is due.

[Tiggeroshii]

12. My understanding

...is that Dean helped promote fundraising in the various ways the Dems have fallen short prior to him. They've stuck close to the PACs that always support them and have reached out to far more smaller, less wealthy groups as they could. I don't know exactly, but this is certainly my guess. Dean was sort of the father of the internet donation idea, so the Dems really picked up on it and are doing even better now that it's clear Dean has a lot of other great ideas in raising money.

[janx]

6. I think that the GOP has a large surprise in store

next November. ;-)

[sabra]

7. there's just one Big huddle - e-voting... :-(

[BillZBubb]

8. Good news and (maybe) bad news...

The good news is we need the money to fight the Repug slime.

The bad news would be if this money comes from the same corporate puppetmasters who are currently running this country. I don't want the Democrats moving to the same string pulls as the Repugs. A Democrat who consistently votes for the corporatocracy is just as bad as Repug who does so.

[second edition]

9. Agreed. We can't be totally controlled by corporate money at

the expense of the American people.

[MsUSA]

10. Yeah, what's up with that??? I heard on NPR just Monday

that Dean's job approval rating with some Dems is so low there's a hint of getting rid of him. It was because he wasn't raising enough cash. I really do despise NPR.....

[AX10]

11. Go Dean Go!!!

The Dean bashers need to step back and take a minute to understand the honorable work that he has done.