To get an idea of how important that second number is, look no further than Mitt Romney’s campaign. The former Massachusetts governor outpaced his GOP opponents in fund-raising during the first three months of the year, but he admitted today that he’s spent a lot of that money, too. After initially declining to disclose the amount of money his campaign had on hand as of Mar. 31–the first fund-raising deadline of the campaign–Romney told reporters in Iowa on Wednesday that he’s got about $11.3 million in the bank. If you’re doing that math, that means Romney has spent more than half of the $23 million he raised. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani raised $14 million in primary election funds ($15 million, if you count the money he’s raised for the general election) and ended the quarter with $11 million in the bank. (John McCain has raised $12.5 million, but has so far declined to release his total cash on hand.) So, in short, Mitt raised a heck of lot of money, but ended the quarter financially on par with Rudy, who is running about 15 to 20 points ahead of the former Massachusetts governor in the polls in spite of spending very little on his campaign. Suddenly, $23 million doesn’t seem all that–though Romney’s aides spin it very differently.
While reporters have been itching to figure out the so-called campaign money “burn rates” of the White House hopefuls, a Romney aide describes $12 million the campaign spent during the first three months of 2007 as an “investment rate” of 51 percent. “Very efficient,” says Romney spokesman Kevin Madden, who provided Newsweek with stats of previous presidential fund-raising cycles. The only problem: Romney’s campaign defends its spending by citing numbers that include money spent over the first 10 months of a presidential campaign, as opposed to just the first three months. For instance, the campaign notes Howard Dean spent half of his campaign funds between January and October 2003. But a check of his fund-raising records filed with the Federal Election Commission shows his burn rate was just 26 percent during the first three months of the 2003. The campaign also cites McCain’s stats from 1999, noting the Arizona senator spent 85 percent of the money he’d raised during the first 10 months of the campaign. But, again, his first-quarter filing was different story: McCain spent 26 percent of the money he raised. Asked if it’s fair to compare Romney’s first quarter stats with historical numbers that cover multiple quarters, Madden says the numbers provide a “good indicator” of historical averages. But enough with the stats. Where did Mitt’s money go? We’ll have to wait until April 15th to find out.
