Kerry's Rope-A-Dope Strategy Appears to Have Caught a Dope, $15 mil diff!

[Dems Will Win]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_04_25.php#002875

The plan is to take these punches from the Bush campaign and let Bush burn through a lot of his money. Hopefully, in the view of the Kerry campaign, Kerry comes through that without having suffered too much damage. Then Kerry fights back with hard-hitting ads through the late spring and summer with Bush having squandered his huge money advantage.

-snip-

There is, however, as Ryan points out, at least some reason to think the Kerry campaign may be on to something. If I recall correctly, the Bush campaign spent something on the order of $50 million in March alone -- most of it on ads -- and certainly tens of millions more through April. So Bush has burned through a ton of money while Kerry has been raising it at a blinding clip. Ryan notes the following ...

On March 1, Kerry had $2.4 million in the bank and Bush had $110 million. By the end of April, a rough educated guess, based on how both candidates are raising and spending money, would put Kerry's cash on hand at about $60 million and Bush's at about $75 million.
Now, there's been a lot of attention to Bush's bounce in the polls. But even so Republican-friendly a poll as the Fox News poll, which is the most recent national poll out, has Bush 43%, Kerry 42%. That's within the margin of error; and by most calculations an incumbent who barely pulls more than 40% is in serious trouble.

So there's certainly a way of looking at what's happened over the last month or so and say that Bush has essentially squandered his entire financial advantage over Kerry. And the race is still neck and neck.

-snip-

ROPE-A-DOPE! We should be only $15 million behind Bush by the end of April. And the Dem 527s have raised $57 mil in the first quarter.

Maybe Teresa could write a $20 million or $50 million check now that they're officially impugning Kerry's character, her exception to her no-spend rule.

[Larkspur]

1. After the RNC convention, Bush's buddies will match what he

has already gotten this election cycle. After the convention, those that gave the max now can give another $2,000, so it won't take Bush long to recoup his losses and he will also take matching FEC funds.

[trumad]

2. Uhhh Hummmmm

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=507855

[RoyGBiv]

3. FEC Funds

Bush has already declared he will not be participating in the matching funds program. I don't know if he can legally go back on that now, or if the rules allow him to alter this after the RNC.

In any case, if he does, he's going to be opening another avenue for an attack.

[Dems Will Win]

4. The opting out of matching funds by both is just for the primaries

Both will get around $70 mil in matching funds for the GENERAL ELECTION from raising $70 million for the GENERAL. Both are predicted to raise about the same after the primary season.

What was not predicted is Kerry's Rope-A-Dope strategy and fundraising pulling him to within $15 mil of Bush/Cheney by May 1. The GOP financial advantage is gone and will now be matched OR EXCEEDED dollar for dollar by the Dems!!

(I've been a political consultant for 20 years so I know whereof I speak here)

[RoyGBiv]

5. Thanks

Thanks for the clarification.

I didn't know quite how that worked, only that they'd opted out of it earlier.

Campaign finance law is such a maze.

[AndyTiedye]

6. Can we give Kerry $2000 now and $2000 after the convention?

[Dems Will Win]

7. Yup

[cally]

24. No, not if he accepts federal funds

after the convention. If he doesn't, then you can give that. Most expect * and Kerry to accept federal funds.

[AndyTiedye]

29. Conflicting Information

I got a yes and a no, or perhaps that was a maybe.
Can somebody provide a link to something fairly authoritative one way or the other?

Are the primary ant the general election considered separate,
with separate $2000 limits? Or is there even a limit for the primary?

Does he have to spend all the primary money before the convention?

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Arugula Latte]

28. Welcome to DU jewishlib!

:hi: :toast:

[liarliartieonfire]

8. A Strategic Player

Our Senator Kerry.

[zbdent]

9. Whatever happened to all those calls bye the RWers for free air

time for all the candidates?

Hmm, now that their boy is in there, Rush and CO. really are mute on this point that they wanted so badly in 2000.

[flpoljunkie]

10. Teresa can give no more to her husband than we can as citizens---$2,000

She has said, however, that she will use her own money, independent of the Kerry campaign, to defend her husband against attacks from the Rethug attack machine, if necessary.

[mzmolly]

11. Well I am enthused to know there is a *plan* in place.

I guess I'll wait and see ? ;)

[jpgray]

12. I thought he was dead as dead could be in the primaries

And he sure surprised the crap out of me then, so who knows?

[mzmolly]

13. I simply dont know if *he* did anything that resulted in a win, or if the

media took down Dean and he benefited? :shrug:

I don't know what strategy paid off for him, do you?

[jpgray]

14. No, and I don't think anyone can know how it happened

There are too many factors involved in an election to blame or credit just one thing, so it's real hard to define what really put Kerry over the top. He does have a pretty good record of winning elections, and in the Weld race he came on real strong towards the final sprint. A presidential election is a whole other ball of wax, and it does make me nervous to watch a rope-a-dope strategy, if that is the strategy, because it won't be clear that it's incredible genius or massive folly until everything is over and done with. Right now it's mostly scary, and occasionally frustrating. :D

Now that he's demanding Bush prove his guard service, and is approaching parity with him in $$, we may see some more hard-hitting stuff from him. But like I said, my crystal ball isn't very effective, based on the primaries.

[mzmolly]

17. I agree with everything you said .

Specially this...

"Right now it's mostly scary, and occasionally frustrating."

Agreed! :scared: :hi:

[JI7]

21. that's not all the campaign is about

it's not as if he isn't doing anything else. the fact is he has a lot less money than bush does. and he can either respond to every single attack with ads and then not have money left over as we get closer to the elections, or he can allow them to spend away and watch the polls to make sure he isn't losing too much support. and he is going around the country and campaigning. it's not as if he is sitting around doing nothing hoping bush will fail on his own.

[Dems Will Win]

15. Dean Roped A Doped himself

Spent Way too much in Iowa and then had no money for anything after New Hampshire.

Remember? Bush might have been lured into the same trap by JK.

[mzmolly]

16. Interesting ....

;)

[JI7]

20. Kerry did a lot during the primary, he campaigned hard

he even lost his voice by the day of the iowa caucuses. it's not all about dean. us kerry supporters were paying attention to him and what he was doing. some of the dean supporters kept posting polls of him doing bad and making fun of him. the media kept talking about him being down in the polls. but he kept on campaigning and going directly to the people and asking for their votes. dean even spend more money in iowa than kerry did.

[mobuto]

18. Its not true

While we're putting on the biggest grassroots campaign in history, the Republicans still have a huge fundraising advantage. By Convention time, he will have raised $250 million. And 2/3 of Bush's money comes from $2000 contributors.

We've done real well, but now's the time to push ahead, not rest on our laurels. Bush's had a bad month, we've had a great month, for sure, but that's nowhere near good enough.

www.democrats.org
http://contribute.johnkerry.com

[Hippo_Tron]

19. Kerry's big advantage over the GOP is that unlike Bush, he can speak...

Kerry can defend himself with policy speeches and moveon.org ads. When Bush runs out of money it's over. As much free media as he has availible to him, he can't make use of it because whenver he makes a speech he lowers his ratings instead of improving them. Kerry will slam the hell out of Bush after he's spent all of his money and Bush will be defenseless. He'll be out raising money to catch up while he slips in the polls.

[ArkDem]

25. A republican presidential candidate running out of money!

You are really on today! Hoo Boy!

[VOX]

22. This presupposes that the GOP only has a finite amount of $$$ to spend...

And when they spend it, it's gone, and there's no more.

Unfortunately, their pockets (and their reach) are much broader than that. They will just keep bringing in the cash from all the big-money, cheap-labor conservatives who have it sweet with The Chimp in office.

But as long as Kerry can stay somewhat competetive with his own cash resources, he should be okay.

[Dems Will Win]

26. It's fairly impossible without the Internet to raise more than a million a

day. That limits Bush who can't make money on the Internet (less than $6 mill so far total).

Even if you're the GOP, you still have to schedule and hold the fundraisers and even Bush and Cheney can't work that fast. Plus in CA, Bush's 2 nd biggest money state, he can now only half-fill the fund-raisers, cause so many Repubs hate him too.

THe DEms will soon be AHEAD of the Republicans!

[Paragon]

23. Hey, it's a boxing analogy - it MUST work.

:eyes:

Just like baseball analogies work for criminal sentencing.