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Republicans May Trounce Democrats on Fund Raising Earnings

Aired June 24, 2003 - 14:47   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush raking in a lot of cash in a string of fund raisers this week. He banked 4 million bucks for his re-election campaign at a stop in New York yesterday with many more to come.
Will his Democratic opponents be left with empty pockets? Well, our senior political analyst Bill Schneider is in Washington with the fund raising forecast.

Bill, let's talk about the campaign finance law and how it applies to all this money.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: What the law says is that both parties can raise hard money, which is contributions limited to $2,000 per person. That's double what it used to be.

The problem is, the Republicans have a much bigger base of supporters who will donate that amount of money. Democrats have not as many people willing and able to give $2,000 apiece.

What Democrats used to rely on was unlimited contributions, so called soft money, that could be used by the party for any purpose in huge amounts. Hundred thousand dollars people would give the Democratic Party to use in campaigns. The problem is the new campaign finance laws says that money is no longer legal.

So that means the Republicans have a big advantage when it comes to raising money. And I believe that 2004 is going to see the largest difference in money raised between the two parties in any campaign in history with the advantage clearly going to the Republicans.

PHILLIPS: Well, you sure see the president rushing around making a lot of money quickly. Why the rush?

SCHNEIDER: Because June 30 is the end of the second quarter and that's when the campaign fund raising totals are going to be revealed.

President Bush has been raising money along with Vice President Cheney and the first lady just for the last two weeks of that quarter, last week and this week. They're rushing around raising all this mean. And as you can see, they are expected to raise as much as $20 million by June 30.

When the numbers come out, for the president and for the Democrats, it could show that the president raised as much money in just those two weeks as all nine Democrats raised together in the second quarter of this year.

That would be phenomenal and, of course, the president will use those figures to intimidate the Democrats and make them believe what's the point of giving money to a Democrat that can't even compete.

PHILLIPS: What do you think he's going to start doing with all this money?

SCHNEIDER: Well, he could start running ads as early as this year. It's not been unknown.

President Clinton when he was running for re-election in the 1996 election started running ads now in June of 1995 to soften the ground, as political operatives say, which means to improve the incumbents image and talk about all the wonderful things the incumbent has done and to intimidate the opposition. It did Clinton a lot of good. Bob Dole eventually became the nominee but he really never really got into the game. He was never once ahead.

So I think we may see the Republicans beginning to spend money on ads promoting President Bush as a war hero, as someone who helped after the war, who won the war in Afghanistan, won the war in Iraq, the hero of September 11. We can see a lot of those kinds of ads coming out as early as this year.

PHILLIPS: All right, we'll be watching. Bill Schneider, thanks for your time today.

SCHNEIDER: Sure, Kyra.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




Earnings>


Aired June 24, 2003 - 14:47   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush raking in a lot of cash in a string of fund raisers this week. He banked 4 million bucks for his re-election campaign at a stop in New York yesterday with many more to come.
Will his Democratic opponents be left with empty pockets? Well, our senior political analyst Bill Schneider is in Washington with the fund raising forecast.

Bill, let's talk about the campaign finance law and how it applies to all this money.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: What the law says is that both parties can raise hard money, which is contributions limited to $2,000 per person. That's double what it used to be.

The problem is, the Republicans have a much bigger base of supporters who will donate that amount of money. Democrats have not as many people willing and able to give $2,000 apiece.

What Democrats used to rely on was unlimited contributions, so called soft money, that could be used by the party for any purpose in huge amounts. Hundred thousand dollars people would give the Democratic Party to use in campaigns. The problem is the new campaign finance laws says that money is no longer legal.

So that means the Republicans have a big advantage when it comes to raising money. And I believe that 2004 is going to see the largest difference in money raised between the two parties in any campaign in history with the advantage clearly going to the Republicans.

PHILLIPS: Well, you sure see the president rushing around making a lot of money quickly. Why the rush?

SCHNEIDER: Because June 30 is the end of the second quarter and that's when the campaign fund raising totals are going to be revealed.

President Bush has been raising money along with Vice President Cheney and the first lady just for the last two weeks of that quarter, last week and this week. They're rushing around raising all this mean. And as you can see, they are expected to raise as much as $20 million by June 30.

When the numbers come out, for the president and for the Democrats, it could show that the president raised as much money in just those two weeks as all nine Democrats raised together in the second quarter of this year.

That would be phenomenal and, of course, the president will use those figures to intimidate the Democrats and make them believe what's the point of giving money to a Democrat that can't even compete.

PHILLIPS: What do you think he's going to start doing with all this money?

SCHNEIDER: Well, he could start running ads as early as this year. It's not been unknown.

President Clinton when he was running for re-election in the 1996 election started running ads now in June of 1995 to soften the ground, as political operatives say, which means to improve the incumbents image and talk about all the wonderful things the incumbent has done and to intimidate the opposition. It did Clinton a lot of good. Bob Dole eventually became the nominee but he really never really got into the game. He was never once ahead.

So I think we may see the Republicans beginning to spend money on ads promoting President Bush as a war hero, as someone who helped after the war, who won the war in Afghanistan, won the war in Iraq, the hero of September 11. We can see a lot of those kinds of ads coming out as early as this year.

PHILLIPS: All right, we'll be watching. Bill Schneider, thanks for your time today.

SCHNEIDER: Sure, Kyra.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com




Earnings>