Lessons Learned from Bill

Stand by for the flood of television commercials, the negative radio ads, the unflattering newspaper pages. George W. Bush has over 100 million dollars to spend, and the copywriters are at the ready. The film is in the can and the time has all been bought, all that's missing is the schedule and the viewers.

Taking a page out of that wily ole Politico Bill Clinton, Bush is about to use his "soft" money to wreak havoc on the early stages of a Democratic nominee. Back in 1996, Bill Clinton used 30 million in money raised from unions, corporations and wealthy individuals to paint Republican nominee Bob Dole in a most unflattering light. And the Republicans being the party of the elephant, never forget. It seems they will be returning that favor and in a sizeable increase in scale.

The President's people have amassed the largest war chest in American political history, with over 104.4 million in the bank as of the end of January. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the Democrat front runner John Kerry, with his still clinging to life competitor John Edwards along for the ride. Kerry is reportedly in a negative cash flow situation so far, with 2.1 million reported in the bank at the end of January, and a 7.2 million dollar campaign debt. Of that debt 6 million is a loan he gave to himself. For Edwards after the debits and credits are tabulated at HQ, the candidate only has around 100,000 dollars to play with.

Now before you hold tag days for either one, keep in mind that Federal funding will provide each party nominee a total of 75 million in post convention money to be used in the Presidential campaign. As well each party plans on adding their own funding as the race heats up.

As a matter of fact the Bush team intends to raise close to another 50 million dollars before the August nomination convention, as the money has to be spent by then. So with roughly 150 million dollars to toss into advertising, look for some serious attack ads on the Democrats.

For the Democrats part, they'll be playing catch up for a while as they wind their way down the nomination trail, and possibly may never catch up to that Republican feed bag.

With all these millions of dollars getting tossed around like penny ante poker bets, one wonders if the average American citizen even bothers to make political donations, let alone bother to vote anymore. It used to be that you got the government you deserve, now it's you get the government you buy.