The GOP Field Does Waldo

By Jennifer Marsico

Why is the Republican presidential primary season taking so long to get off the ground?

Why is the Republican presidential primary season taking so long to get off the ground? The answer has to do in part with money and the vagaries of our campaign finance system.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, the Reagan Library held a Republican primary debate in early May 2007, and ten official candidates—including John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Rudy Giuliani—participated. This past week the Library announced that the first Republican primary debate of the 2012 campaign, which it had scheduled for May 2, has been pushed back to September 14.

The reason for the postponement is that many GOP candidates have yet to declare their candidacies. Only one top-tier Republican, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, has announced he is forming an exploratory committee. Other potential candidates have made a lot of noise—Newt Gingrich, for one, has formed the website “Newt Explore 2012” to test the political waters—but none has made a 2012 bid official. Why the delay?

The strongest Republicans will need to demonstrate the ability to at least stay in the vicinity of Barack Obama’s fundraising.

A key reason is money: Republican operatives know that their eventual nominee will face the toughest fundraising environment in history. In the 2008 cycle, Barack Obama raised about $745 million, and some expect that he will raise $1 billion in this cycle. In 2008, he opted out of the general election campaign finance system because he could raise more money privately than via the matching public funds system. Although money cannot guarantee victory, it is one of the biggest drivers of campaign momentum. In the first quarter of 2007, Obama’s better-than-expected fundraising set him up as a viable challenger to Hillary Clinton in Democratic primaries.

It is a good bet that both major party candidates will opt out of the public matching system, as Obama did in 2008. Without the prospect of matching funds, candidates will be responsible for amassing all their campaign funds. Therein lies the dilemma for the Republicans. If they declare their candidacies now, the primary season will get longer, and they will need to raise even more money. The strongest Republicans will need to demonstrate the ability to at least stay in the vicinity of Obama’s fundraising. If they wait, however, they risk not being able to sustain the high level of fundraising they will need for the primary and general election contests.

Mitt Romney and other presumed frontrunners worry that insurgents like Michele Bachmann will steal the fundraising spotlight, further complicating their own efforts.

Another reason some top-tier candidates may be holding back stems from the fundraising prowess of second- and third-tier potential candidates who are strongly ideological. The top first-quarter fundraiser was Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann, with more than $2 million raised between her congressional campaign account and federal political action committee. Though Romney finished a close second in fundraising, he and other presumed frontrunners worry that insurgents like Bachmann will steal the fundraising spotlight, further complicating their own efforts.

Republicans considering a presidential run may be focusing on the benefits of waiting to officially announce, but waiting too long to jump in the race has its own problems. In 2008, former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson was a darling of the conservative movement, as speculation about a Thompson presidency brought comparisons to Ronald Reagan—another actor with political experience and national ambitions. Thompson performed well in straw polls throughout the spring and established himself among the leading candidates.

Waiting too long to enter the presidential race can effectively kill a frontrunner’s chances.

But the summer of 2007 went by with worrisome shakeups in his campaign staff, lackluster stump speeches, and still no official announcement from Thompson. By the time Thompson formally entered the race after Labor Day, the energy once surrounding his campaign—energy that could have driven strong fundraising efforts—was gone. This year’s GOP prospects need to heed this cautionary tale—waiting too long to enter the presidential race can effectively kill a frontrunner’s chances.

So what are potential 2012 GOP candidates doing now to show they are serious about running? They are setting up political action committees to aid fundraising efforts for other Republicans. Although PAC money cannot technically be spent on a presidential run, it can go toward salaries of presumptive staff and building goodwill among candidates on the state level via campaign contributions.

While many agree that pushing the campaign calendar back and starting campaigns later would be a welcome development, for the candidates themselves, difficult calculations about current fundraising techniques, abilities, and realities are delaying announcement decisions. But Thompson’s experience just four short years ago is a stark reminder that there is such a thing as waiting too long.

Jennifer Marsico is a Jacobs Associate at the American Enterprise Institute.