Thursday, June 02, 2005
Howard Dean: He Havea Big Mouth, But He Makea No Money
Downies were warned when they decided to select formerTitanic captain Vermont Governor Howard Dean as the chairman of the Downtrodden National Committee: big Downie donors hate Dean and will stay away. All that was pooh-poohed - after all, Dean rose tons of cash during his (hilarious) campaign for President, which crashed and burned before it even got started.
Wonders of wonders! Now it appears that those critics were right - Dean is a disaster when it comes to fundraising...and his silly party is falling further and further behind the GOP:
Howard Dean's Raised Voice Isn't Raising Cash
Wonderful! This is such great news...perhaps when Downies lose more seats in the House and Senate come 2006, they can find another scapegoat to blame their partywide problems on - and they can fire Screaming Deanie.
Downies were warned when they decided to select former
Wonders of wonders! Now it appears that those critics were right - Dean is a disaster when it comes to fundraising...and his silly party is falling further and further behind the GOP:
Howard Dean's Raised Voice Isn't Raising Cash
One hundred days into his tenure as the high-energy, higher-decibel chairman of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean is in trouble with party moneybags. The former Vermont governor seems to be doing a better job flaying the Republicans than bridging the cash chasm between the parties. Given Dean's 2004 run as a populist crusader, moderates were never wild about his takeover of the Democratic National Committee. So some big donors are sitting on their wallets.
Dean wowed the faithful in '04 with his Web-based fund-raising magic. But major business donors still count, and in his new role as party honcho, the feisty doctor seems to be struggling to connect. After achieving money parity with the GOP in 2004, Democrats have fallen far behind. According to the Federal Election Commission, the DNC raised $14.1 million in the first quarter of 2005, vs. the Republican National Committee's $32.3 million. Dean drew about 20,000 new donors, while his rivals picked up 68,200. The bottom line: Republicans have $26.2 million in the bank vs. $7.2 million for the Dems.
Why the yawning gap? For starters, Dean is not a natural fit for the "stroke and joke" style that traditional party chiefs use to extract cash from well-heeled contributors. "It appears that the chairman has come to the conclusion that he doesn't need major donors," sniffs one fat cat. "He hasn't made any effort to reach out."
Personality factors aside, Dean's business-bashing '04 campaign makes him a hard sell in corporate circles. "There's a wait-and-see attitude from business and major contributors," says Nathan Landow, a Maryland developer and big-time donor. "This guy has some work to do to get the comfort level up." William W. Batoff, a Philadelphia real estate developer and longtime Democratic fund-raiser who backed President Bush in 2000 and 2004, is less diplomatic. "Howard Dean is the wrong person to be chair," says Batoff, who claims he will help fund the Dems' congressional efforts but will boycott the national committee while Dean reigns.
Wonderful! This is such great news...perhaps when Downies lose more seats in the House and Senate come 2006, they can find another scapegoat to blame their partywide problems on - and they can fire Screaming Deanie.
