The Fred Heads had a goal of five million for their first financial round-up, but fell short by over 1.5 million. From the Associated Press [5]:
WASHINGTON (AP) - Undeclared Republican candidate Fred Thompson on
Tuesday reported raising nearly $3.5 million in one month for his expected presidential bid, lagging behind his backers' goal of $5 million.
The "Law & Order" actor and former Tennessee senator filed papers with the Internal Revenue Service that showed he spent about $625,000 in June, the first month that his preliminary campaign committee was operating.
At $3.46 million, the total raised fell short of the $5 million goal his backers initially set to reach in one month for his committee to "test the waters" of a presidential bid.
Thompson did, however, collect more than several other Republicans in their initial fundraising months as prospective candidates. Still, Thompson's take doesn't even compare to Mitt Romney's one-day $6.5 million haul.
This leads you to consider a few things. First off, any and every campaign always wants to put their best foot forward in their first publicly disclosed finance report. Many so much so that they put off paying various bills until after the day the report must be filed so as to inflate their cash...or they'll make sure checks are dated a certain date so they can be included as income on a particular report.
Second, Fred's been out there a while. He played the "will he, or won't he" game for months...letting the impression build that people were just begging him to get in...then they created the exploritory committee, (which has to file the public reports). This means they had several months of lead time of knowing at what point on the calendar things would become public...and a list of donors representing the "low hanging fruit" that they would start to pick as soon as the official process began.
That said, they're only showing 3.5 million raised. Which leads one to wonder does this figure represent the "low hanging fruit"? (and given that half of it's from Tennessee [6], you have to lean that way) And if so, that's trouble, given how front-loaded and expensive this primary campaign will be. If it doesn't, then why aren't those folks on board yet? Is something spooking them? Or are reports about disorganization in the budding campaign true? Time will tell.
(Full disclosure: I'm on the Romney bandwagon)
***
More: From CQ Politics [7]:
Whatever the reasons for the fundraising shortfall, the less-than-advertised totals for his month-old committee - along with a staff shake-up shortly after it got started - suggests that Thompson's presidential effort is not the juggernaut that was first expected.
Politico [8] has more details.
