Preparing for an FEC campaign finance filing deadline tomorrow, the Mitt Romney campaign has distributed an internal memo today instructing staff on how to spin the fact that, apparently, the candidates’ figures won’t be as impressive as they were last quarter.
I don’t normally get all that interested in this money stuff, but since this fell into my lap today, I share it with you for what you can make of it. (By the way, I’m not claiming any great reporting prowess here. Think about it: What better way to disseminate talking points than to leak the memo?)
Here’s the first of five talking points:
First, the coverage will no doubt fixate on the "horserace numbers." This tells only part of the story given this cycle’s unprecedented nature, and the competing needs of less well-known candidates, such as Governor Romney, for both fundraising dollars and political exposure. For example, we should expect Governor Romney’s total for the quarter will be very strong but less than the first quarter total. Our total will reflect the campaign’s strategic decision to include more political travel days in this quarter than in the first. For example, Governor Romney spent 8 days in New Hampshire and 12 days in Iowa this quarter, which was double the number of days he spent in those states during the first quarter. He also spent time preparing for and participating in three Republican presidential candidate debates. This resulted in important political strides (as increasingly recognized in the media, most recently by Dan Balz’s piece in The Washington Post), but there has been a tradeoff with time spent fundraising.
And here’s the full memo.
Related Posts
The dog abuse story certainly couldn’t have helped.