n e w : p a t r i o t s : n e t

Ron Paul Sets All-Time Fundraising Record
There Are Records, Then There Are Records. There Are Receipts, Then There Are Receipts. Ever Is Ever. Nobody Beats Ron Paul.
William Westmiller : December, 2007

Unofficially, the Ron Paul campaign raised $5.92 million dollars on-line yesterday. That’s the largest amount every raised by any candidate on-line in any electoral campaign ever, anywhere. Over 57,668 Paul supporters can be justly proud of themselves and delighted about what those kind of funds can bring to their campaign.

The Boston Tea Party blitz "broke the thermometer" on the $12 million campaign quarterly goal within the first few hours. Reporters and columnists will probably be quibbling about what records it actually broke for the next week, while they’re taking rides on the Ron Paul Blimp. Volunteer promoter Trevor Lyman will probably be getting more than his 15 minutes of fame.

campaign records

Candidates are not required to record contribution receipts on the day they are received. They are only required to exercise "due diligence" in entering the data prior to the end of the quarter, for reporting to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Campaign offices may have stacks of checks received during the course of a week, before allocating staff to do the required data entry before a reporting deadline.

As a result, there is no way to tell, from FEC reports, what day the contributions were sent or received. The only thing known is when they were entered into the computerized reporting systems. The last day of a quarterly reporting period may be the most hectic. That’s when Hillary Clinton’s campaign entered $6.2 million dollars of contributions: June 30, 2007. At the time, her campaign publicized several million-dollar fundraising events in the prior week, but took no credit for any one-day record for receipts.

Ron Paul beat that record too! In addition to the on-line contributions, he received over $400,000+ in off-line contributions on Sunday, bringing his verified record one-day fundraising total of $6.32 million.

on-line receipts

In the 2004 presidential campaign, John Kerry took in $2.7 million from on-line contributions (automatically recorded into their systems on that day) two days after he "locked up" the nomination: March 6, 2004. That record was broken by the November 5th Ron Paul Money Bomb that brought in $4.2 million.

However, FEC records indicate that the Kerry campaign entered an additional $3.0 million on the same day. There is no way to tell when those additional funds were sent or received. Nevertheless, the total of $5.7 million has been reported as a one-day fundraising record for Kerry. Ron Paul total receipts broke that dubious record by more than a half-million dollars.

quarterly records

The 4th Quarter FEC reports are not due until ten days after January 1st, 2008. Given Ron Paul’s totals, it is unlikely that any competitors will be bragging about their quarterly totals before the numbers are released by the FEC, well after the Iowa and Wyoming caucuses and the New Hampshire and Michigan primaries.

At this point, the Ron Paul effort is projected to raise over $21 million for the fourth quarter. That exceeds the third quarter totals reported by every other Republican candidate for President. None of them have reported their receipts so far this quarter, although Mike Huckabee was delighted with breaking a $2.0 million campaign goal last week. At the beginning of this quarter, Ron Paul had more cash on hand ($5m+) than any other Republican candidate except Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. Both Romney and McCain were in the red, due to debts incurred by their campaigns (for Romney, three loans from his own pocket).

For too many months, reporters have discounted Ron Paul’s credibility. He either couldn’t raise enough money ("the mother’s milk of politics") or he couldn't develop enough grass-roots support to turn out voters. On the first count, Paul is now the apparent leader in Republican Presidential candidate fundraising. He will undoubtedly be hiring more staff and buying more advertising. But, for real grass-roots activists, none of the campaigns even come close to the 77,949 real people who are participating in MeetUp events around the country. That’s twice as many committed supporters as all of the other campaigns (Republican and Democrat) combined. There are a dozen other social internet groups with tens of thousands of Paul supporters. In terms of grass-roots activism, nobody even comes close to the Ron Paul rEVOLution squads.

Next Sunday, Tim Russert will not be able to say "You can’t win" to Ron Paul’s face. That hour-long appearance on Meet The Press will expose millions more to the Ron Paul message. What astounds the other campaigns is that Ron has no "handlers" to "prep him" for this major appearance. He doesn’t need them. He’s been practicing for 30 years and never varied in his principles. He is naturally eloquent and he can be totally honest, because he respects voters and knows the facts. There will be a lot of people astounded by the successes of the Ron Paul campaign. And they will be astounded again when the January election results start arriving.

update - Some stories are repeating the Romney campaign claim that it "raised" $6.5 million during one day in January. They have since admitted that these were not contributions, but primarily pledges, which may or may not have been honored.