“President Barack Obama’s campaign“, reports Olivier Knox of Yahoo! News
. . . spent more than it took in over the month of May despite his frenetic fundraising schedule, leaving the massive operation with just shy of $110 million dollars cash on hand against $115 million one month earlier.
The embattled incumbent scooped up a hair over $39 million dollars but spent nearly $44.6 million, according to a formal filing with the Federal Election Commission. A more detailed breakdown can be found here.
The figures followed the release of data showing Republican standard-bearer Mitt Romney outraised Obama and Democrats in May—the first time the former Massachusetts governor topped the president in the 2012 cycle.
Not just that, Yahoo! also reports that “Romney enjoyed what campaign officials described as his single best day of fundraising yet, which hauled in between $6 million and $8 million for the candidate as he made a finance swing through Michigan on Wednesday.” These stories led a senior Obama campaign strategist to lament that “we’re going to be the first incumbent outspent”.
Actually, if this trend holds up, they won’t be. Another incumbent, as Michael Barone reports, already holds that honor:
In 2004, incumbent Republican George W. Bush’s side was outspent narrowly by those opposing him and favoring Democrat John Kerry. One reason is heavy spending by billionaire George Soros, about which we heard few complaints from those now decrying the billionaire Koch brothers’ spending as a threat to democracy.
IIRC, Too much money in politics was not a problem in 2008 when the SCOAMF refused public financing and outspent Landslide McCain 3-to-1.