This is a post that probably would not have existed -- or at the least would have come with positive, rather than negative connotations -- had it not been for recent claims by the Richardson campaign that they would top the Edwards campaign in second quarter fundraising (per The Post June 22, "New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson [...] has told other Democrats that he expects to raise more money than Edwards this quarter"). But part of politics is playing the expectations game, and it looks like the Richardson team is going to be more hurt than helped by their whisperings. The AP's Jim Kuhnhenn has the details of Richardson's new fundraising talk.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson raised $7 million for his Democratic presidential campaign during the last three months, surpassing his first quarter fundraising, his campaign announced Friday.[...]
Richardson, who raised $6.2 million from January through March, had 24,270 individual contributors for the second quarter and a total of 38,000 donors for the past six months, campaign spokesman Pahl Shipley said.
Edwards was expected to fall short of the $14 million mark he set in the first quarter. The campaign's Web site on Friday recorded his current total at $8.6 million with a goal of $9 million for the quarter.
Those numbers are actually pretty solid for Richardson, and on their face he cannot be disappointed by them. But the credibility of a campaign is not something that is easily replaced when folks start to doubt it. And raising the expectation that Richardson was going to outraise Edwards this quarter and then failing to do so by more than 25 percent will likely make some, myself included, think twice before buying into the campaign's hype.
And not to pile on, but sending out a press release claiming that a candidate has attained top-tier status is not the way to go about convincing anyone, whether in the media or in the electorate. Don't tell us you're in the top tier -- show us. Sending a press release like that does not show us. Neither does raising fundraising expectations above an achievable point.
There is still some time left in the quarter and things can still shake out differently than the campaigns are telling us now. Candidates are still raising money through tomorrow night, so these early reports can change. And and in fact, we're not really going to know the fundraising tallies until the middle of next month, regardless of the tidbits of info selectively released by the campaigns well before that point. But for now, in the early stages of this round of the expectations game, the Richardson campaign isn't coming off looking too good.
Update [2007-6-29 19:55:33 by Jonathan Singer]: MSNBC's First Read has the Richardson campaign trying to downplay those previous claims (which were reported in The Post last Saturday) on Tuesday:
By the way, on the money front, the Richardson camp would like to dispute the notion that they will outraise Edwards this quarter. They will only say they are confident they'll beat the $6 million they raised in the first quarter. Fair enough.
Fair enough. I would just say, however, the pushback on that story seemed a bit late in coming, though it did come a few days before the new reports that Edwards outraised Richardson somewhat handily this quarter -- even if less so than in the previous one.
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