"The Daily Trail: Donald Trump's day started out bad. It got worse."

[NastyRiffraff]

Well, well, well. The "I'm really rich" guy isn't doing so well with campaign finances:

As we've long noted, Donald Trump has said he wants to run a different campaign than the one Mitt Romney did in 2012. On that front, he is succeeding handsomely.

—By this point in 2012, Romney had named a leadership team in the critical battleground state of Ohio, and opened more than a dozen "victory centers" there. Trump has done neither of those things yet. That's different.

—So is campaign hiring in general: by June of 2012, Romney had fully-staffed teams working on communications, data, rapid response, and the ground game. Trump does not, with a national staff roughly 1/10 the size of Clinton's.
(snip)
Why hasn't the Trump campaign been spending the money? Tonight, we found out why: they don't have it.

At the beginning of this month, Hillary Clinton's campaign announced that it had raised $28 million for the month of May. Trump's campaign said nothing...until tonight, a little more than two hours before the FEC filing deadline, when we learned that he had raised roughly $3 million for the same period, and loaned his campaign another $2 million, ending the month with a little over $1 million in the bank.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/paloma/the-daily-trail/2016/06/20/the-daily-trail-donald-trump-s-day-started-out-bad-it-got-worse/576814af981b92a22d22cda6/

[PatrickforO]

1. Does anyone see the irony in this?

I'm absolutely convinced that Citizens United and other SCOTUS rulings that have corrupted our electoral system should be overturned.

But what is hilarious, or ironic, or whatever you want to call it, is the Republicans who should be collecting huge amounts of warbucks for their campaign chests...aren't. And Clinton, the Democrat, is doing quite well in the fundraising game.

It's just too bad any of them have to do it. A three-week publicly financed election like the Brits have would be a very happy thing for us, I think. Happy for the people, I mean. Most of the politicians currently in office wouldn't like it much.

[99th_Monkey]

2. Do the pols actually prefer begging for money

Over making laws?

[PatrickforO]

3. I don't know if they prefer it. Some maybe.

I wouldn't. The idea that to run for office you have to have immediate access to $X million for the race is abhorrent. It really is.

[99th_Monkey]

6. I agree. n/t

[Hortensis]

17. I'd love a 3-week publicly financed election.

Wouldn't that adjustment be a shock to the nation. But overall a pleasant one. A national holiday on election day. A whole new tradition of street fairs and concerts in the parks celebrating our peaceful transitions of power, or at very least a special day off to look forward to...

That x-million is believed to be close to $1 billion to fund a presidential race alone. This is courtesy of the kind of money our extremely wealthy nation has to throw at our new election industry over the 2-year election seasons that keep it permanently at work. Until we just say no more and put it out of business.

[99th_Monkey]

19. That is a nice dream

"street fairs and concerts in the parks celebrating our peaceful transitions of power"

I like that. A lot.

It's the kind of thing I would have expected with Bernie in the White House.

[Hortensis]

20. "Yes, we can." I liked that too. We should

use it until we really believe it.

Bernie's still around, so are his ideals and goals, and all those who share them.

[auntpurl]

8. No. They hate it.

Watch John Oliver's piece on congressional fundraising:

[99th_Monkey]

12. Thank you. I rest my case.

My question was rhetorical, in case that wasn't obvious.

Still, a really good John Oliver clip, so thanks

[Lucinda]

15. Hillary has said that a lot of the breakdown in civility she has seen in congress

can be tied, in part, to the fact that there is soooo much dark money financing these races and that people are spending less time getting to know and socialize with their colleagues, and more time racing around fund-raising just to keep their jobs. She had a great interview a while back talking about how much the silly little social aspects of the job were actually hugely important to building relationships across the aisle.

[tblue37]

5. Since any super rich jerk can now fund his own personal presidential candidate, the GOP ended up

with such a crowd of candidates that none of them could consolidate a never trump majority in the primary. Most were not even really running for president, but only to enhance their own brand so they could vsdt more money on the RW gfift circuit afterward. In fact, that was a large part of Trump's purpose, that and the ego stroking attentilon he craved.

Without CU, most of the GOP clown car candidates would have had to fold early--and some probably would never have gotten started in the first place.

If the GOP had any sense, they would find a way to undo CU, but that is as unlikely as the mi ority outreach they promised to attempt after their 2012 loss.

[SheilaT]

4. He has no clue whatsoever about what's actually involved

in running for high office. He thinks it's just a kind of reality show. And so far, for him, that's exactly what it's been.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

11. Exactly.

When reality finally settles in, trump will find a way out.

Out of the campaign, that is.

[Cha]

7. Excellent, Riff.. Mahalo! Poor trump.. Hillary is outrasing him by $Millions! Thank you

Hillary!

[auntpurl]

9. £3 million is actually nothing in this context, a statistical blip. That is unbelievable.

This is the strongest signal yet that Trump's campaign is totally nonviable.

[Sheepshank]

13. Trump got 2,000,000+ votes

If they each donated $13 he could almost match Hillary. Why are they not donating? more than $1.50 each?

[auntpurl]

14. Probably because he's run entirely on the premise that he's the richest mf'er in the land

and being broke doesn't fit with his supporters' view of him as being this super successful businessman.

[charlyvi]

16. Also bragged about financing his own campaign

And not being beholden to anyone. I guess they figure he has his own "bootstraps" and shouldn't go begging for money when he doesn't need it! The Republican Way.

[RogueTrooper]

18. Being rich enough to run without seeking funding is a big selling point amongst his supporters

]He has been bragging about how he has bought politicians in the past and how, because of his wealth, he cannot be bought. Sadly, for the purposes of buying his own Presidential campaign, maybe not. It's difficult to preach the propriety gospel when you are, well, not prosperous.

He not only has to perform a tricky volt-face in front of his supporters but he has to approach the donor class (something he has shown unwillingness to do) and ask them for money. I think he is going to continue to show these levels of enthusiasm when he has listen to the donor class use his own statement of alleged worth as an excuse to decline whilst they say they decided to focus on down-ballot races.

Turning his fund-raising disaster around and starting to the long process of filling his campaign coffers might prove beyond the powers of the alleged billionaire. The donor class not only have their excuse but, with his campaign's recent performance, good reason not to invest. Whether they other members of the Republicans' coalition (The Churches, The NRA & Viagra ) is happy to let him dip his tiny hands into their blue collar clientele.