Donald Trump
Media buzz was alight Tuesday with the latest tabulations of campaign cash raised by Hillary Clinton, likely Democratic presidential candidate, and Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, with the former beating the latter by almost nine times the amount.
Clinton in the month of May raised $26.4 million, Federal Election Commission filings showed. Trump, on the other hand, raised $3.1 million. And members of the media pounced, pointing to the discrepancy as proof of Trump’s floundering campaign in the face of Clinton’s rising popularity.
The Daily Beast, for example, opined: “Trump’s lack of fundraising success has a direct impact on the way he is able to fight for the White House. He has a staff of just 70, a tenth of the campaign team assembled by Clinton. Since he effectively secured the Republican nomination in May, Trump has not broadcast a single TV ad. There have been $117 million spent on ads for Clinton.”
The New York Times blasted the headline, “Donald Trump Starts Summer Push With Crippling Money Deficit,” with the opening lines: “Donald J. Trump enters the general election campaign laboring under the worst financial and organizational disadvantage of any major party nominee in recent history, placing both his candidacy and his party in political peril.”
And the Huffington Post – a news outlet that vowed months ago to run all Trump stories in the Entertainment section and to caveat all coverage of the candidate with a disclaimer that accuses him of “regularly incit[ing] political violence” and labels him a “serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther” – put a story in the Politics section that said this: “Donald Trump’s Latest Campaign Finance Report Makes Dumpster Fires Look Good.”
The Huffington Post went on to call Trump’s “tiny sum” as “unbelievably paltry for a major party nominee.”
Another from the Huffington Post, also in the Politics section of the online site, ran with this headline: “#TrumpSoPoor Trends As Twitter Mocks GOP Candidate’s Empty Coffers.”
By comparison, Mitt Romney, who failed twice in runs for the White House, raised $23.4 million in May of 2012, when he faced off against President Obama, and had on hand more than $17 million in the bank, the Guardian reported. The Daily Beast, meanwhile, reported Romney and party officials collected $76.8 million in May, 2012.
But the difference between the Trump and Clinton campaigns is this: The billionaire businessman has for months used his own money to finance his run, something he vowed to do when he first kicked off his campaign in mid-2015. His decision to seek financial help from the party is recent – and as the Guardian pointed, that means “most pro-Trump super PACS were not due to file financial reports” this week, “having either just formed recently or being subject to a different schedule.”
Clinton, on the other hand, has relied on donors from the beginning of her campaign, and her war chest reflects the fact that after months of a tight match-up against Sen. Bernie Sanders – and a touch-and-go situation with her email server investigation and talk of another politico being slid into her shoes in case she was indicted – that she’s finally moved into the presumptive nominee spot. Donors have clearly responded with cash.
Trump held his first fundraiser on May 20, saying to the Associated Press he only did so to comply with a Republican National Committee request.
“The RNC really wanted to do it and I want to show good spirit,” Trump said then, the Daily Beast reported. “Cause I was very happy to continue to go along the way I was,” and self-fund the campaign.
A spokesman for the Trump campaign, Hope Hicks, said during a recent interview that finances were not a concern.
“There are no fundraising concerns whatsoever,” she said, the Guardian reported. “The money is pouring in and Mr. Trump has received tremendous support.”
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/06/21/trump-campaign-cash-slammed-by-gleeful-media/
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