Send Lawyers, Guns and Money
Via The Hill
House and Senate candidates are scrambling for dollars this New Year’s Eve in order to post impressive fundraising totals when the fourth quarter ends at midnight.
The end of 2013 has brought a flurry of last-minute emails begging, pleading, joking and warning of dire consequences if their supporters don’t kick in that last chunk of money before the end of the year.
Candidates and committees are even promising to do pushups and threatening to sing pop songs in order to pull money from their would-be supporters’ purses.
Posting impressive fundraising numbers can help campaigns get more money in 2014 from big donors and the major committees, who don’t want their money to go to waste on loser campaigns.
The result is candidates competing with one another for attention ahead of a midterm election, when every House seat and a third of the Senate will be up for grabs. There are also 36 gubernatorial races in 2014.
Both sides are using bogeymen to drive donations.
Democrats’ favorites include the Tea Party, “big oil” and the Koch brothers, while Republicans warn of the “Obama-Pelosi machine” and union dollars.