when clearly left leaning Politico begins writing Biden's campaign obituary you know it's over for "Corn Pop"
‘They’ve got no margin for error’: Biden cash crunch raises alarms
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/1...ng-2020-049062
By
MARC CAPUTO and
NATASHA KORECKI
10/16/2019 06:47 PM EDT
Updated: 10/16/2019 09:51 PM EDT
Stalled in the polls and on the heels of another uninspiring debate performance, Joe Biden’s campaign was forced to respond to another troubling issue Wednesday: his lackluster fundraising.
Just months ago, Biden’s initial cash haul surprised naysayers who doubted he could compete with the money-minting machines that are Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. But now the former vice president is bleeding money.
Biden spent almost $2 million more than his presidential campaign raised in the third quarter, a predicament caused by sluggish fundraising coupled with the expenses of maintaining a big payroll and a nationwide operation — one that included luxury expenses such as swank hotel stays at the Westin and The W, and
nearly $1 million for private jets.
His cash on hand sum of $8.9 million is so low that it’s almost four times lower than the $33.7 million banked by Sanders, nearly three times lower than Warren’s $25.7 million war chest and more than twice as small as Pete Buttigieg’s $23.3 million.
Democrats on Wednesday expressed grave reservations about whether Biden’s fundraising performance is an indication he cannot go the distance.
“It’s a high burn rate and that’s a big problem,” said Joe Trippi, a veteran of multiple presidential campaigns. “They’ve got no margin for error with what they’ve got in the bank.”
Biden’s top tier opponents vastly outraised him. And unlike the former vice president, none of them spent more than they earned, according to the campaign finance reports that were released hours after the debate.
“If he stumbles at all, he’s in big trouble. Is it enough to make it through Iowa and New Hampshire? Probably. But if he comes in third in Iowa, I don’t see how he recovers,” Trippi said. “I don’t know if it’s him or the campaign, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense, the high burn rate on top of what’s coming in. It’s like with the debate problems he has: Is it the campaign, or is it him, or is it both?”
As in other debates, the 76-year-old’s performance onstage Tuesday came under fresh criticism from both progressives and conservatives alike for failing to speak clearly and for rambling about “people clipping coupons in the stock market.”
And feminists
bristled at Biden for appearing to shout at Warren as he took a measure of credit for her idea to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, prompting a tense exchange during which he tried to recover by telling Warren she did a “helluva job,” to which Warren coldly replied, “Thank you.”
“You could hear a gasp from women in the debate hall as women sat up in their chairs,” said Rebecca Katz, a progressive consultant and frequent Biden critic who was in the audience Tuesday night. “There was only one real moment of the night where Biden really stood out and that moment was not at all good for him.”
Biden fared better on foreign policy, where his experience showed. Tom Donilon, who worked as national security adviser to Barack Obama and is a longtime friend of Biden, said the former vice president dominated the discussion, including laying out how Trump’s actions in the Middle East are resulting “in extraordinary volatility.”
“The damage is broad and will require a president to address it day one,” said Donilon, who advised Obama in a 2008 debate against the late John McCain that focused on foreign policy. “His answers last night were specific and showed his experience. There are very few people in the country with the depth and level of experience in national security that the vice president has.”
Biden’s financial struggles coincide with Warren’s surge in the polls, leaving her tied with him in some national polls and surpassing him in some early state surveys as well.
Biden and his campaign have insisted for months that he’s got a plan and he’s sticking to it.
“I am confident,” Biden told reporters on Wednesday after his financial reports revealed his precarious condition
.
He also said he isn’t changing anything, and then took a veiled shot at Warren for transferring money from her Senate account before entering the presidential race.
“Remember, we got started later than anybody at all in this campaign, number one. Number two, we did not start off by dropping $10 million from a Senate campaign, wherever that money was raised from, into a race,” Biden said. “Number three, we've been in the process of having about a third of the time that many people have had. And we’re doing fine. Our fundraising is building. We’ve raised a lot of money online and we’ve raised money offline as well. So we feel confident we're going to be ready.”
Biden donor Denise Bauer, a former ambassador to Belgium, echoed the sentiment, citing an uptick in donations at the end of September and the beginning of October.
“The digital side of things are growing; we raised $1 million just online in the first week of Q4,” Bauer said. “It’s just going to continue to grow as the campaign grows.”
Others aren’t so sure.
James Carville, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton, said a candidate of Biden’s stature should not be in this position. For instance, Biden’s $9 million cash on hand is even weaker than the $12.4 million John Edwards had in the bank at this point in 2007, when he was running third in polls behind Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
“It is problematical and not typical,” said Carville, who second-guessed
Biden’s strategy for not being more aggressive in attacking President Trump on a daily basis ever since news broke Sept. 20 that the president may have improperly held U.S. aid to Ukraine hostage in order to pressure the foreign country into investigating Biden and his son over a contract involving a Ukrainian natural gas company.
“He had a golden opportunity,” Carville said. “If I was him, on Day One that the Ukraine story broke, the message every day would have been, ‘They know I can beat him and that’s why Trump is doing this.’ Yeah, he did an op-ed about his family being attacked and all that. But if you do this, you do this all the time.”
Karen Finney, a former spokeswoman for President Obama and Hillary Clinton’s campaigns, said Biden’s poll numbers “aren’t a problem but they need a fundraising strategy for online small donors.”
Biden’s circumstances may have gotten a post-Ukraine bounce, especially after he directly called for
impeaching the president — which other candidates had done long before.
In the 81 days of the financial quarter before the Ukraine news broke Sept. 20, Biden’s campaign had a daily average reported donation of $130,000. In the 11 days after Sept. 20, Biden’s campaign pulled in an average daily donation of more than $296,000.
Still, Biden was blown away overall in fundraising, pulling in only $15.7 million, while Warren hauled $24.7 million and Sanders $28 million. Biden spent more than $17.6 million.
Payroll, taxes and insurance cost the Biden campaign more than $7 million, by far its biggest expense. Various digital services were $1.4 million. Travel expenses were $1.3 million and event-related expenses totaled more than $1 million, about the same Biden spent on media buys and production.
With a campaign struggling for cash, Biden’s decision to drop more than $923,000 on private jets to attend fundraisers stood out, although Biden donor John Morgan said he had to spend the money to make money.
Morgan said he wasn’t worried about Biden’s standing because the field will winnow and Biden will benefit.
“These things ebb and flow,” Morgan said. “We know what Trump knows: [Biden] is the one that beats Trump for sure. If the Democrats risk nominating a socialist, it won’t work in the general [election].”
FEC report reveals Biden money problem
