The Wall Street Journal has a must read piece today about Mitt Romney spending his personal wealth to keep himself in the race for the Republican nomination.
Some excerpts:
A senior aide to Mr. Romney says the millionaire investor plans to spend as much as $40 million in the campaign. Mr. Romney spent $17.4 million of his own money on his campaign through the third quarter of last year, according to the Federal Election Commission.
At a time when some campaigns are running dangerously low on funds, Mr. Romney's ability to self-finance will make it difficult to count him out of the race until the very end.
Mr. Romney, who is reportedly worth at least $250 million, is certainly not the first, or the largest, self-financing politician. Ross Perot spent a combined $71 million in his pair of bids for the Oval Office in 1992 and 1996. Steve Forbes gave $76 million of his own money during two unsuccessful bids for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996 and 2000. And the White House isn't the only prize that prompted others to dig deep in their pockets. Jon Corzine, the former head of Goldman Sachs and Democratic governor of New Jersey, spent more than $60 million on his successful U.S. senate race in 2000.
All of the Republican candidates, including Mr. Romney, are having potentially campaign-killing fund shortages and are searching for money at every spare moment. But Mr. Romney is the only one who is willing and able to self-finance.
In Romney's defense; he earned it. And he has a right to do whatever he wants with his money. But the law is broken.
Opponents to self funders have a hard time competing because federal election law limits their donors to a maximum contribution of $2,300 (per election, so $4,600 for primary+general). What's even more ridiculous is that the amount for individuals is lower than the amount that corporations, unions, and lobbyist PACs are allowed to give!
Self funding gives a candidate a tremendous advantage. It allows his media buyers to reserve unlimited amounts of TV time knowing that the candidate will make up the difference if the money doesn't come in. That is luxury campaigns whose candidates have to work to raise money do not enjoy.
Limiting self funding was determined by the Supreme Court to be a restriction on free speech; and indeed it is. But limiting the amount that individuals are allowed to give is an equal restriction on speech. Individuals should not be limited in the amount of money they are allowed to give to political campaigns.
If Romney didn't have all that money; he would have to rely on his prize-winning personality:
Mitt is the man. Why he is the man.
1. He is most organized and has the clearest and most developed positions on the issues.
2. He is brilliant, a Harvard business and law school graduate at the top of his class.
3. He knows how to be loyal. 38 year marriage & great realtionship with his 5 sons.
4. He is a self-made multi-millionare. A success story needs to run our nation.
5. He doesn't owe special interest groups favors.
6. He is the turn-around king. His whole career has been about taking something that is in trouble and making it prosper.
7. He is a social conservative.
8. He has won the most states, most delegates, most votes so far.
9. He is an extremely hard worker and energetic. He has gone from unknown to the frontrunner and beaten out most of the household names.
10. He is a very loving and compassionate man. It would take one to raise 5 kids.
11. Because of his Mormon faith that man has never been drunk, smoked, done drugs. (healthy). Mormons give 10 percent of their income to their church--which gives lots of humanitarian aid. He was asked to be a bishop in a mormon church which involves willingly giving up almost all one's free-time to help others and is completely voluntary rather than a paid ministry. While at the same time juggling a family of 7 and a very demanding career. So the guy can do a lot of things at the same time.
12. He has the breadth of experience needed to be successful as a president. In the private sector, in the volutary sector, in the public sector.
GO Mitt I can't wait to see him win Florida and then steamroll into the White House.
Posted by: adawg | January 24, 2008 10:23 PM | Permalink to Comment