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By The Hill Editors
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Posted: 07/19/07 06:48 PM [ET] |
Not even the wealthiest presidential candidates have money to burn. They must choose where to spend and where to save, and it is fascinating to parse those choices in data that candidates file with the Federal Election Commission.
As The Hill’s Alexander Bolton revealed in yesterday’s paper, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) have decided to burn much less money in South Carolina than their chief rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) — at least for now.
That caveat is the heart of the matter: Is the discrepancy between candidates’ spending in specific states merely temporary, betokening nothing more than a brief imbalance that will be swiftly redressed, or does it reveal an unacknowledged decision to cede a state in order to deploy more financial firepower against another target? No candidate expects to win everywhere, and all are properly reluctant to pour good money after bad.
Polls in South Carolina are all over the map, but the RealClearPolitics average suggests a tight race, with Clinton just 2.7 percent ahead of Obama. Edwards lags badly, having seen his support in the state roughly halve since February.
So there is nothing in Clinton’s numbers to suggest she is ceding or should cede South Carolina, and her spokesman, Phil Singer, said, “We have a strong commitment to South Carolina and making our case to voters there. We’re running an aggressive operation and taking nothing for granted. Our operation is constantly growing as we make the case to as many voters as we can.”
This sounds about right, but is also unvarnished boilerplate. It will be interesting to see how fast Clinton grows her South Carolina operation. It has a long way to go if it is to match Obama’s raw numbers. In the second quarter, Clinton’s campaign had only seven paid staffers in the state — she had 30 in New Hampshire and 25 in Nevada — and spent a total of only $158,000 there. Obama, perhaps expecting to scoop up many of the black voters who account for half of South Carolina’s Democrats, spent $480,000.
All the leading Democrats are pouring huge sums into Iowa, a fact that shines a harsh light on suggestions that national poll numbers matter more this cycle. The suggestion contains some truth because so many states are holding their primaries on the same day, Feb. 5. But if national numbers were what counted, candidates would be able to ignore Iowa.
This would be particularly the case with a candidate like Clinton, who has struggled in the state (and currently trails Edwards there in the RCP averages) but who holds solid and consistent leads in national polls.
The truth is that whoever wins Iowa is going to get a huge boost in national polls and in individual states. Which is why Clinton spent $835,000 there in the second quarter — more than half of it on the salaries of 70 local campaign staffers.
The campaign trail is where the color is. But on the money trail, things are strikingly depicted in black and white.
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