Monday, July 20, 2015

Campaign Contributions Update

Here's a quick overview of the past week's major political events
 
Donald Trump reveals his net worth. Color us green - with envy, or embarrassment. Donald Trump filed his personal financial disclosure this week, and we were gobsmacked. Everyone believed The Donald had a ton of money, but few - including us! - would have guessed he was worth $10 billion. Hmmm. That means he could write a $1,000 check to every likely GOP caucus or primary voter in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, and still have ... about $9.5 billion left.
 
A look at the candidates' financial pictures Federal Election Committee reports filed this week show how much money each campaign has raised. Not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton
on the Democratic side and Jeb! Bush on the Republican side were the leaders in the fundraising wars. Clinton raised $46.7 million. Long-shot Bernie Sanders raised $15.2 million.
 
Jeb! Bush's official campaign numbers were lower than many expected, at $11.4 million. Ted Cruz came in second place on the Republican side, with $14.3 million. Marco Rubio placed third with $8.9 million. (Rand Paul raised $6.9 million).
 
Perhaps more importantly, Jeb's affiliated Super PAC reported raising more than $100 million - but Ted Cruz's affiliated Super PAC reported raising $37, meaning he'll have a combined $52 million spent on his behalf.
 
Hillary Clinton has a new - and completely different – email problem now. For months, we at TPPCF have been reporting on Hillary Clinton's email scandal and about how she violated State Department protocol with her exclusive and unprecedented use of an unsecure personal email account. But this week, Clinton has an entirely new email problem that could cripple her campaign.
 
Back in April, Clinton campaign staffers sent out an email to the email distribution list from Mrs. Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. The list had over 2.5 million email address and names - a strong email list for any campaign on Day One. This week, the campaign staffers set out to clean up the email list and delete the inactive accounts. The result? Fewer than 100,000 of the email addresses were still active. This lack of an email list will hamper the Clinton campaign's ability to recruit volunteers, host events, and, most of all, fundraise.
 
For more on Hillary's latest campaign fail, see this article:
 
FoxNews no longer the only debate. FoxNews will host its debate for the Republican presidential candidates the first week of August. Fox announced a few months ago its strict criteria for determining who will be able to participate in the debate. Fox will limit the number of candidates to 10, taking the top ten based on national polls.
 
That rankled many, who thought the criteria for inclusion were too strict. So three newspapers - the New Hampshire Union Leader, the Cedar Rapids Gazette, and Charleston Post and Courier – are joining forces to co-host a candidate forum three days before the Fox debate, so that all the GOP candidates get a chance to appear together. The purpose is to have a wider debate for more candidates.
 
The University of Virginia's Larry Sabato, one of the most insightful academics we know, published his take on the FoxNews and CNN debate criteria this week, and it reads as if he's been reading our newsletter. Take a look:
 
New grading system for GOP candidates Conservative Review, which many people in the Tea Party Patriots network have come to rely on for its excellent commentary and political reporting is now offering voters, especially in early primary states, a new grading system of the GOP presidential candidates. The profiles are extremely thorough and provide voters a detailed look at where each candidate stands on the most pressing conservative issues. The profiles of each GOP presidential candidate can be viewed here
[http://www.conservativereview.com/Commentary/2015/07/~/link.aspx?_id=A432F33F3D134F818252F79AA8C3309A&_z=z]
 
That's all for this week. Keep fighting for freedom!
Jenny Beth Martin, Chairman, Tea Party Patriots

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