Hillary Clinton has sent a fundraising email out through her political action committee on behalf of Minnesota Senate candidate Al Franken, whose electoral battle against rival Norm Coleman is headed for a recount.
"Just 206 votes," the email opens. "That's the difference separating Al Franken and Norm Coleman in the Minnesota Senate race -- 206 votes out of about 3 million cast."
"In the coming days, Minnesota officials will carefully count every vote to make sure they get the most accurate count possible," the email continues. "But once again, Republicans want to interfere any way they can with the vote-counting. They're setting up legal challenges and questioning the voting officials' integrity."
The email goes on to request donations to Franken's campaign to "make sure every vote is counted."
Democrats now effectively control 57 Senate seats. If this race, along with the other two outstanding contests in Alaska and Georgia, goes their way, they will have the 60 votes necessary for a filibuster-proof majority.
Barack Obama "reported spending $82 million on advertising during the first two weeks of October -- more than half of what Sen. John F. Kerry spent on television commercials for the entire 2004 presidential campaign," the Washington Post is reporting.
Obama and the Democratic Party together spent $105 million during the two weeks, while John McCain and Republicans spent just over $25 million.
In some markets, the Democrat is airing seven times as many commercials as McCain.
"It's beyond saturation," media analyst Evan Tracey told the Post.
While McCain took public financing for the general election, Obama opted out of the system, choosing instead to rely on his unprecedented fundraising operation.
The Republican National Committee can still raise money for McCain, though in the last two weeks alone, Obama outraised the RNC by $22 million.
On the heels of the weekend revelation that Barack Obama’s campaign had raised an astounding $150 million in the month of September, John McCain’s campaign filing shows that he entered the month of October with just $47 million to spend for the duration of the election.
Because he is taking federal funding for his general election campaign, McCain is not raising any more money for his effort, relying instead on the $84 million provided in federal funds. The report shows that McCain’s campaign has spent about $22 million on television ads through the end of September, according to the AP. The RNC can spend up to $19 million in coordinated activities with the campaign and the national party raised about $66 million in September.
In a conference call with reporters today, McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis questioned the transparency with which the Obama campaign has detailed its fund-raising efforts and challenged them to put all their donor information online. Davis acknowledged the impressive fund-raising of Obama but said the McCain campaign has enough resources to compete and win.
Rock icons Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel will perform at a concert to benefit Barack Obama’s campaign next month, the AP reports. The two musicians will team up for the joint appearance in New York City on October 16, the day following the final presidential debate. Obama plans to attend the event, according to the AP and tickets will cost from $5,000 to $10,000.
Barack Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe has sent out a new fundraising appeal calling for 50,000 new donors to the campaign by this Friday night. The e-mail includes a link to a video Plouffe has made giving supporters a quick look at the situation in a few battleground states, as the campaign sees it.
“Our fight in the battleground states is going to be tougher than a lot of you may think,” Plouffe wrote in the e-mail. “Take Florida, where George Bush won by just 381,000 votes in 2004. The campaign we're running there is going to cost more than $39 million. That can only come from supporters like you -- unlike John McCain, we don't take money from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs.”
In the video, Plouffe says that a major development has taken place in the past week. “John McCain has abandoned his message of experience in Washington and now admits finally that this election is about change. And so there’s no doubt about what the election’s about, it’s about change and that’s a debate we think we’re well-positioned to win.” Watch it:
Barack Obama’s campaign hauled in $66 million in August, CBS News has learned, his best fund-raising month ever. While the campaign would not say how much money the campaign had on had as of the end of the month, those figures will be available when the finance reports are due on September 20.
John McCain’s campaign earlier reported having raised $47 million in August but because the Republican is accepting federal funding for the general election, the campaign had to donate any remaining money to state and local party organizations as of the first of the month. McCain received about $85 million for the fall campaign when he accepted the GOP nomination. Obama, who is bypassing the federal system, can raise and spend a nearly unlimited amount.
But Republicans expect to remain competitive overall, party because of their national committee. The RNC held a $50 million edge over its Democratic counterpart at the end of July. And, Obama’s decision to rely on his own money network means his campaign will have to devote precious time to fundraising as the election surges through the final weeks.
John McCain’s campaign raised $47 million in the month of August, including $10 million raised since the presumptive nominee tapped Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate, the AP reports.
Because he is accepting public financing for his campaign (unlike Democrat Barack Obama), McCain can not keep any money he had left as of this week when he will receive about $84 million in public money. According to CBS News, McCain plans to give any leftover campaign money to select state parties.
Meanwhile, the AP reports that Palin has hired a private attorney to defend herself and members of her staff in an investigation into the firing of a state employee. The Alaska state legislature has appointed an independent investigator to look into complaints that Palin inappropriately used her office to remove her former brother in-law from his job as a state trooper.
Yesterday we told you how the McCain campaign was using its "Celeb" ad as a fundraising tool. Turns out the Obama campaign had the same idea.
"Less than 24 hours ago, the McCain campaign launched the latest and lowest in a series of misleading attack ads," campaign manager David Plouffe writes in a fundraising appeal that arrived this afternoon. "This Karl Rove-style ploy misleads people about Barack's energy plan and even mocks his ability to inspire voters and bring Americans back into the political process."
The email quotes former McCain strategist John Weaver calling the ad "childish" and says "watchdogs in the media are calling McCain's accusations 'bogus,' 'desperate,' 'wrong,' 'misleading,' 'ugly,' 'offensive,' 'reckless,' and 'a nasty turn into the gutter.'"
"In the face of these new attacks, you can help demonstrate that a movement funded by grassroots supporters giving only what they can afford is ready to take on the Republican fundraising machine and its onslaught of negativity," Plouffe writes.
The email concludes with a link to the Obama campaign's response ad.
The McCain campaign seems to think it has a good thing on its hands with its new television ad linking Barack Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. The spot, "Celeb," is now being used in a fundraising plea from the campaign.
After linking to the new spot, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis writes: "We agree that Senator Barack Obama may be the 'biggest celebrity in the world.' But as you and I know, simply attracting large crowds of fans with empty rhetoric doesn't prepare a person to lead a country. The more we get to know the real Barack Obama, the more he shows that he is not ready to lead our country."
The email goes on to ask "that you make a donation of whatever you can give to help us air this ad for millions to see."
Davis also sent a memo out earlier today reinforcing the message of the spot – and casting Obama as an arrogant elitist basking in "fans, paparazzi and media adoration." The criticism is reminiscent of that leveled at Democratic nominee John Kerry in 2004.
Writes Davis: "Only a celebrity of Barack Obama's magnitude could attract 200,000 fans in Berlin who gathered for the mere opportunity to be in his presence. These are not supporters or even voters, but fans fawning over The One. Only celebrities like Barack Obama go to the gym three times a day, demand 'MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew -- Black Forest Berry Honest Tea' and worry about the price of arugula."
In a conference call this afternoon, John McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, suggested that the campaign will "be looking at a unified budget of over $400 million" when all is said and done.
That "relatively conservative number," he added, will put the campaign "on par with what we believe the potential resources for the Obama campaign is going to be."
Davis said that the McCain campaign and Republican National Committee had $95 million cash on hand at the end of July – $26.7 million for the McCain campaign and $67.8 million for the RNC. (McCain's figure is down from the $31.5 million he had on hand at the end of May.)
He said McCain raised "just over $22 million" in the month of June – more than the candidate has raised in any previous month.
Davis also said that "the McCain campaign spends about $10 million a month less to run their campaign" than Obama, which he suggested has helped the campaign of the presumptive GOP nominee close the cash-on-hand gap on his rival.
Davis added that the McCain campaign has outspent Obama on advertising "just under three to one" since April, a factor he suggested could have helped keep Obama from maintaining a significant head-to-head advantage in national polls following Hillary Clinton's departure from the Democratic race.
Davis' suggestion that the campaign would have a $400 million budget results from his adding together the campaign and RNC's current cash-on-hand, the money he expects will be raised by the two groups' combined efforts from today ($95 million), the $84 million the campaign will get from the Federal Election Commission as a result of public financing, and various other fundraising efforts.
"We anticipate having over $210 million available to us from September up on to Election Day," Davis said. The Republican National Convention will take place at the beginning of September, and it is then, when McCain becomes the official GOP nominee, that he will take the public financing money. (Obama opted out of the public financing system.)
Davis estimated that 40 percent of the funds raised are coming as a result of a direct mail campaign, 20 percent is coming from the Internet, and the rest is coming from major donors. He said that McCain is presently doing about one fundraiser per day, excluding weekends.
Obama's campaign hasn't released his June numbers yet. In May, Obama raised $23.3 million and had $43.1 million on hand.
Ex-NBA ref Tim Donaghy 