It may go down as the most extraordinary financial gamble in presidential campaign history. Last November, more than half a million dollars in debt and up against a billionaire opponent, John McCain took a deep breath, put on his best suit, and went to see the bank manager.
The only collateral he had to offer were his lists of donors. And, it transpired, his life.
The Fidelity & Trust Bank, which Mr McCain approached for the loan, was impressed by his fundraising lists, but they would be useless if he were not alive to tap the donors on them. And, as they regretfully pointed out, Mr McCain — at 71 the oldest ever first-term candidate — was no spring chicken. So Mr McCain agreed to take out a special policy, payable on his death, to cover the $3 million loan.
Two months later, Mr McCain is not only still alive, his campaign is millions in credit and triumphantly leading the Republican field, a financial as well as political resurrection.
The tales tied up in the fortunes of all the 2008 presidential candidates were laid bare today with the submission of their year-end fundraising reports to the election commission.
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None was so dramatic as that of Mr McCain, the former prisoner of war who became the only presidential candidate to have staked his own life on a loan to fund his campaign.
For Mitt Romney, his main Republican rival, credit was a little less crunched. To the $54 million he raised from donors last year, he added $35 million from his own pockets. In the past three months of 2007, his personal contributions were outstripping those of his donors two to one.
Mr McCain, whose spending plans outstripped his coffers by the exact same margin, was forced to scale back his campaign dramatically, closing offices in 20 states and focusing all his resources on the New Hampshire primary on January 8.
The gamble paid off. Since going cap in hand to the bank, Mr. McCain has seen a dramatic reversal of fortune, raising $7 million in the first three weeks of the year and racing to the front of the Republican field. By contrast, Rudy Giuliani, the top Republican fundraiser, crashed out of the race in Florida last week despite starting the year more than $12 million in credit.
Amid January’s frenzied fundraising - including Barack Obama’s record-breaking $32 million haul - the 2007 figures may appear positively outdated, but their lessons about what money can and cannot buy have not been lost on the candidates.
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Having achieved so much with so little, the McCain campaign now looks reluctant to splurge cash on advertising that may do little to change the results. Mr Romney lavished $5 million on a television advertising blitz in Florida, but was still defeated narrowly by Mr McCain, who spent less than $2 million.
Mr Romney has scaled down his air wars accordingly, running only one television spot in the key state of California, in which he emphasised his business experience as a sounder qualification for leadership than Mr McCain’s political and military career.
That too could backfire. “You know, Mitt Romney hasn’t got a very good return on his investment during this presidential campaign,” quipped Mr. Obama in yesterday’s Democratic debate.
Obama supporters are banking on a better one. As the other campaigns were filing their year-end finance reports before a midnight deadline yesterday, his campaign was flagging up a record-breaking January haul — $32 million, the most money ever raised in one month by a candidate in the presidential primaries. The announcement grabbed headlines and caught many of the other campaigns on the backfoot.
Official January figures are not due for another three weeks, but the Obama team released its January figures first, waiting until minutes before the midnight deadline to post its 2007 total — an impressive $103 million, but still beaten into second place by Hillary Clinton’s whopping $115 million.
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The real story, however, may lie more in the number of donors than the amounts donated. Mr Obama’s record haul came courtesy of an avalanche of small donations from individuals newly energised by the political drama. While many of Mrs Clinton’s bigger contributors have already maxed out their donor limits, Mr. Obama’s smaller-time supporters can continue to pay out.