As the Democratic presidential candidates gather in South Carolina tonight for the CNN/YouTube debate, their campaigns are experiencing debate fatigue, reports the Washington Post's Anne Kornblut. Tonight's debate is the fourth this year and will be followed by at least six sanctioned debates and other gatherings from interest groups.
The number and frequency of debates are putting added stress on schedulers who are already "caught between finding time for the candidates to spend in early states and finding time for fundraising," worsened by the early, compressed primary calendar. Tired as they may be, the campaigns are still devoting prep time to each debate. This is less of a problem for Republicans, who have fewer debates.
Not only do Democrats have more debates than Republicans, they have more money too. Democratic candidates for the White House and Congress and the party's committees have amassed more than $100 million more than their Republican counterparts, reports the Wall Street Journal's Mary Jacoby and Brody Mullins. Democrats have found new success among "affluent donors and corporate sources of campaign cash," where the GOP's dominance was expected to remain after 2002's McCain-Feingold regulations. Since then, Democrats have used disapproval of President Bush and Iraq to gain traction with "deep-pocketed business contributors" and utilized a massive database of donors and the Internet to collect small contributions.
Democrats are outspending Republicans in Nevada, indicating the importance of the caucuses to their nomination, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Molly Ball. Barack Obama spent $240,000 in the first half of the year, followed by Hillary Clinton, who spent $205,000. In comparison, Rudy Giuliani spent the most of any Republican: $42,237.
For all the hype about the Interior West being the new battleground, it hasn't seen much action from candidates so far, writes the Denver Post's Karen Crummy. Democrats are seen as more attentive to the Rockies than Republicans, with recent Democratic successes on the state level, a Denver location for their convention and Nevada's earlier caucus. Clinton, Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson have held 44 events in Nevada during 2007, half of which were for Richardson.
In Iowa, John McCain made his first appearance since June 9, assuring supporters he will compete in the state and will win the caucuses. Today McCain will be in Michigan where he'll pledge to repeal the alternative minimum tax and hold down government spending with a line-item veto as president. In South Carolina, one of McCain's strongest supporters in 2000, Cyndi Mosteller, is throwing her support behind Fred Thompson. Mosteller said it was McCain's immigration position, not his recent campaign troubles, that was the cause for defection.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney said Clinton is closer to Karl Marx than Adam Smith with her idea of a "shared responsibility" society.
Finally, NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg will speak to the Urban League in St. Louis this week, addressing "hundreds of influential African-American leaders in a presidential swing state just 48 hours before they hear from the three leading Democratic presidential hopefuls," writes the New York Sun's Jill Gardiner.
Get these and today's other election stories at RCP's Politics and Elections page.
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