Must-Read on Kerry Fundraising

The Washington Post offers Redefining Democratic Fundraising on John Kerry's fundraising. Here is a snippet of the highlights:

• Lawyers, especially trial lawyers, are the engine of the Kerry fundraising operation. Lawyers and law firms have given more money to Kerry, $12 million, than any other sector. One out of four of Kerry's big-dollar fundraisers is a lawyer, and one out of 10 is an attorney for plaintiffs in personal injury, medical malpractice or other lawsuits seeking damages.

• Much of the seed money for the Kerry presidential campaign was collected through donors to his Senate campaigns, including lobbyists with interests before two of the Senate committees on which Kerry serves: the Finance Committee and the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

• Fueling Kerry's money surge havebeen credit card collections on the Internet, a technique pioneered by his onetime rival Howard Dean in 2003 but used with even greater success this year by the presumptive Democratic nominee. Kerry has been raising more than $10 million a month on the Internet, for a total of more than $65 million, compared with $8.7 million for Bush in the past year, according to officials with both campaigns.

• Kerry appears to have succeeded in creating a new class of donors for the Democratic Party. Dozens of his fundraisers are relative neophytes in big-money politics and have not been active in making their own contributions. A review of federal campaign contributions of the big Kerry fundraisers shows that one-third of them have not made more than $20,000 in campaign contributions since 1990.

• Kerry's donor base is overwhelmingly bicoastal. Almost half of the big-money fundraisers hail from either California or New York. Seventeen of the fundraisers are from Kerry's home of Massachusetts. Kerry has substantially outraised Bush in California and New York, $39.7 million to $28.5 million; Bush has crushed the Democrat in Florida and Texas, $36 million to $8 million.

Article on Voter Registration Activities of Democratic-leaning 527s

See here.

"Seeing Double on Ballot: Similar Names Sow Confusion"

The New York Times offers this report, which begins: "José E. Serrano encountered a slight impediment on the way to being re-elected to Congress from the Bronx. It was Jose Serrano, an unemployed former loading dockworker with the same name, who had decided that he, too, wanted the Congressional seat."

Delegate Blog

My friend and former boss David Ettinger is blogging as a delegate from the Democratic convention for the Ventura County Star. You can access his blog posts here. The newspaper will also have delegates blogging from the Republican convention in September.

-- 
Rick Hasen
Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow
Loyola Law School
919 South Albany Street
Los Angeles, CA  90015-1211
(213)736-1466
(213)380-3769 - fax
rick.hasen@lls.edu
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org