Kerry Campaign has $2.4 million on hand

[mobuto]

KETCHUM, Idaho (Reuters) - Democratic Sen. John Kerry's presidential election campaign reported on Sunday it had collected $8.4 million last month, well shy of the $13.7 million haul of rival President Bush.

Kerry's latest take, disclosed in a filing with the Federal Election Commission, barely outstripped his spending and pushed his campaign war chest up only slightly to $2.4 million.

In contrast, Bush's re-election campaign had $110 million on hand at the end of last month.

--continued--

I just posted this in LBN, but its really important. Kerry can't compete, let alone win, without money.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=4613704

[swag]

1. Thanks

http://contribute.johnkerry.com

[leyton]

2. Yikes...

that doesn't look good. We're gonna need all the free media attention and all the 527's we can get.

It's not so bad that Kerry only collected 8.4 million to Bush's 13.7 million but that Kerry has no money at the moment, while Bush has on hand more than either campaign spent last time.

[jenk]

3. all dems must pull out the check book

[Hav]

4. .

All of you who can afford it, please donate.

Wouldn't be great and a fantastic sign if the Dems could collect the 10 Million?
So spread the word and tell friends and relatives.

[barbaraann]

5. I'm told my mom that's it's more important to defeat Bush than

to pass money on to her children (she's in her eighties). I'm not going to tell her exactly how to donate it, but she is leaning toward Kerry and possibly MoveOn.

I'm talking about ALL of her discretionary funds; she feels exactly the same way I do about how important it is to fight for democracy.

She already writes letters to help out but it's crunch time now.

[ulTRAX]

6. kerry is fighting for democracy? when?

Kerry is a member of one of the most anti-democratic representative chambers among the advanced democracies. I have never heard him criticize that body for being anti-democratic... nor have I heard him call for the abolition of the EC. If he did either that would be a START.

[looking glass]

7. I think that it is closer than reported

The last few articles that I read that took both soft money and matching federal funds into account, showed both campaigns to be on a much more even footing than this article indicates.

[Chicago Democrat]

8. John Kerry NEEDS your Money! Now!

And mine. The 10 Million in 10 days campaign is not doing well.

http://www.johnkerry.com

Please donate as much as you can today.

[Democat]

9. Why are Democrats not giving as much as Republicans?

We have more registered voters, what's going wrong?

[mobuto]

10. We have more registered voters

but the Republicans are richer and have a much larger core of organized, motivated partisans. That's always the case - and its why Republicans traditionally do much better in low-turnout elections, because their hard core always turns out.

[Democat]

12. Is it mostly because of the organzition of churches?

We have unions, they have churches, but the unions continue to get weaker and the churches stay strong. Is that the heart of the problem, or is it something else? Where is our side going wrong?

Why can't we get more churches on our side? The liberal world view is more in line with most religions than the hateful right wing world view.

[mobuto]

13. Well, we have churches too

African-American churches are traditionally the most organized of all Democratic GOTV efforts. The heart of Republican activism really isn't in organizations, its in (mis)dedicated individuals who have enough money to be able to volunteer a certain section of their time for Republican causes. They're really just been a group of motivated shits working on their own.

Now you're right, we've been able to counteract that some with unions, black churches, etc. But those groups have been losing power in recent years. And Republicans are learning to mobilize conservative churches, and set up parallel GOTV efforts. Ralph Reed did just that in Georgia in 2002.

[DaveSZ]

11. Maybe

It’s because Kerry just isn't very inspiring compared to someone like Dean.

[Democat]

14. I don't think that's the problem

This seems to be an organizational problem between Democrats and Republicans, not just a candidate based isssue.