Mitt Romney's campaign began teasing out its June fundraising totals on Thursday, revealing that it raised $100 million in a single month, the most ever for a GOP candidate. Although the Obama campaign hasn't announced its monthly fundraising haul yet, it's all but certain that June will be the second consecutive month that Romney out-raised the president. That paints a distinctly different picture from the last presidential election, when Obama trounced Republican John McCain in the fundraising race. This time around, "it appears that Republicans are not going to have the fundraising disadvantage that many assumed they would have," says Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway. How big of a blow is this to Obama?
Romney is making things awfully tough for Obama: This record-breaking haul is simply huge, and could certainly make up for Team Romney's series of damaging campaign errors, says Taylor Marsh at The Moderate Voice. Obama is the sitting president in a poor economic climate, and that makes him incredibly vulnerable. The race remains close despite Romney's lackluster performance thus far, and this financial windfall could counterbalance the damage of "a lot of the campaign's gafferifficness."
"Can Mitt Romney's money haul make up for bad messaging?"
And Mitt is going to keep piling up cash: The Obama campaign is "quickly losing the money race," says Grace Wyler at Business Insider. Romney's total highlights "the underlying Catch-22 of Obama's central campaign message": Rhetoric on income inequality and attacks against Romney's wealth and business record "may work with rank-and-file voters," but they also turn off potential business owners who may think they would be "acting against their own economic interests by contributing to [Obama's] campaign." The more Obama is perceived as anti-business, the easier time Romney will have convincing big-pocketed donors to come to his side.
"Top Ohio donor: 'It wasn't like this under Clinton'"
C'mon. Obama needn't fret over this: Fundraising pleas from the Obama campaign and affiliated organizations have become increasingly hysterical, says John Hinderaker at Power Line, but the "shrill tone of the campaign's emails" is unnecessary. "At the end of the day, both candidates will raise plenty of money to get their messages out." Romney might edge Obama in fundraising, but it's not going to be a repeat of 2008 when one candidate outspent the other nearly two to one. The playing field in 2012 is relatively level, which means that the election isn't going to come down to money. Instead, it will be all about "Obama's first-term record."
"How much will Obama raise?"
Read more political coverage at The Week's 2012 Election Center.
