GOP Nominee
Former Candidates
From the Hill:
More than 9,000 donors contributed a total $3.4 million to likely presidential candidate and former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) in June, according to reports his 527 committee filed with the IRS Tuesday.
Though the figure was widely reported Monday, the narrative following the amount seems to be one of a struggling would-be campaign.
Not so, say campaign officials.
Thompson managed to raise an impressive amount of money in one month with only two fundraisers, no direct mail and no telephone support, the exploratory committee said in a release.
The campaign raised the figure from more than 9,000 donors; 7,500 of them were online and 6,888 contributed less than $200.
The campaign noted that only $625,746, or 18 percent of the total, had been spent. The campaign spent more than $106,852 on payroll.
Friends of Fred Thompson Inc. filed as a 527 on June 4. Because he filed as a 527 group, Thompson has not had to file quarterly reports with the Federal Election Commission.
The former senator attended a number of fundraisers in July, including one Monday night in Washington.
UPDATE: I will have a more in depth look at his numbers later.
July 31st, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Well, that settles it then.
July 31st, 2007 at 3:29 pm
spin, spin, spin…
Romney raised $6.5 million on a Monday:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2007/01/romneys_big_day.html
Fred is all hat, no cattle.
July 31st, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Tommy - I agree. There is a big difference between the numbers a candidate would raise
when flexing his muscle (i.e. bringing donors in to make one-day salesforce.com calls) and when a
candidate has not yet rolled up his sleve to show his guns….
July 31st, 2007 at 3:47 pm
The question remains though, why won’t Fred roll up his sleeves and tap all that untapped potential? Something is wrong with Fred Thompson. Maybe it’s his health, maybe he doesn’t care enough, maybe he fears working as hard as he can and coming up short to the other candidates, instead of throwing up a smokescreen saying “hey look, I did this much without trying, just think how much I could do if I actually tried”, but not actually proving it by DOING IT. What’s going on here?
July 31st, 2007 at 4:06 pm
I’m not so sure Thompson’s following a bad strategy here. Look at the numbers. . .not just his but of the others too. FDT held two fundraisers and little more work beyond that, and he’s spent relatively little of that money to date. Yet his poll numbers are high and only going up. Contrast that with Romney, who as mentioned above brings in gobs of money on any given day, but beyond a few key states barely moves into double digits in a race he’s been in for over a year now. McCain raised and spent millions over the past year and look where he is. Even Rudy seems to have leveled off nationally and has gone down in a couple key states. It’s very early - too early - to know which strategy will succeed, and I’m not judging the merits of anyone’s strategy here since I still have no favorite (I personally lean towards Mitt in this race but I like Rudy as well), but Thompson could do a lot worse than where he’s at. A couple GOPers are gone from the campaign, one biggie is nearly gone, and none of the second tier guys seem to be rising to the top. Maybe waiting until Sept or October isn’t such a bad idea.
July 31st, 2007 at 4:12 pm
It’s a sad state of affairs when nothing more than a southern accent and being an actor gets you high poll numbers and votes in America. Seriously, I have no idea on what Fred actually stands for.
July 31st, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Romneybot, huh, that’s weird.
What makes Romneybots sick is that a person can be lazy and manage his campaign team in less than presidential form, and just because he is on a tv show and has an uneventful senate career, he gets high poll numbers. Notice any opposites? Although me and other people are being compared to machines, I appreciate the fact that Mitt Romney manages people and situations so well that despite most of America knowing only one thing about him (that he’s Mormon-the South really likes that since they are so open minded), he is still able to outraise all of the other candidates in the Republican feild. Name one other candidate that has been able to do that in history. I’m going to quite typing now and defragment my brain and put myself in sleep mode - sheesh. If I’m a robot, than a Thompson supporter is a couch potato.