The $39 million in personal money Meg Whitman has poured into her campaign for governor gets the headlines, but the cash that didn’t come from her own checkbook may be even more important in the 2010 campaign.
Take all the personal money out of the various gubernatorial campaigns and Whitman still leads the money race. The $10.4 million the former eBay CEO raised from contributors in 2009 is more than the $8.5 million Democrat Jerry Brown took in last year and far more than the $2.1 million fellow Republican Steve Poizner collected from donors.
You might want to put an asterisk by Brown’s number, since he’s got another $4 million in the bank that he raised before 2009, when he was stockpiling cash for his re-election as attorney general.
To get an idea of how tough it is to raise the type of money Whitman’s taken in, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom had collected $2.3 million in 2009 when he decided to bail out of the Democratic primary because the fund-raising wasn’t there to challenge Brown. And on the GOP side, Tom Campbell shifted his flag to the Senate race when he realized that less than $1 million in contributions wasn’t going to cut it in the Republican race for governor.
If you’ve got a lot of cash and are willing to spend it, political finance is dead simple. Write a check to for your campaign costs and when that isn’t enough – and it won’t be – write another. Continue as needed.
But while that’s been a profitable recipe for campaign consultants, it hasn’t worked out so well for the candidates. California’s political landscape is littered with the bodies of wealthy wannabes who found out that money doesn’t always equal votes.
A thick bankroll actually can become a problem for voters. If someone can afford to put millions into his or her campaign, a voter may reason, why should I add my hard-earned $50, $100 or $500 contribution to the pot?
That’s why the $38.9 million Democratic businessman Al Checchi put into his 1998 primary campaign for governor was almost all the money he raised for the race.
Four years ago, Democrat Steve Westly raised $44 million in his losing primary race for governor, but $35 million came out of his own pocket.
Poizner found out first-hand about that problem in 2004, when he ran for an Assembly seat on the San Francisco Peninsula. Despite a fund-raising boost from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, then at the height of his popularity, Poizner raised only about $1.2 million to go along with the $5.7 million of his own money he put into the race. He lost.
The thing is, campaign contributions represent more than money. Every person who gives money to a candidate, whether it’s $20 or $20,000, is signing on to that campaign. He’s picked a horse and has a serious rooting interest in how the race finishes. The Obama campaign in 2008 used its millions of small contributors to generate a buzz about the candidate and worked hard to get those people involved in the campaign.
Sure, part of Whitman’s fund-raising success comes from the many contacts she made during her lengthy business career and the long list of rich friends that most wealthy people have. And it’s true that about 25 percent of her contributors are from out of state and won’t be casting a ballot this June.
There’s also no argument that the personal contributions wealthy candidates like Whitman and Poizner make are a big deal. It let Whitman buy the months of statewide radio advertising that boosted her to the front of the GOP pack and allowed her to start running TV ads four months before the election.
As for Poizner, without the $18.7 million he’s put into his campaign, the GOP primary would already be over.
But on election day, the winner is the candidate who can gather the most support from voters. And Whitman’s early success in attracting campaign contributors is an important first step in that direction.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.