Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” calling him “a transformational figure.” The support from the former Secretary of State under Buash and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff does much to allay undecided voters’ concerns about Obama’s lack of experience.
But it is the Obama campaign’s announcement on Sunday that it had raised $150 million in September that should really be worrying the McCain campaign. Obama is already airing four times as many advertisements as McCain, and has broken the advertising spending record George W. Bush set in 2004 election with more than two weeks to go.
On Monday’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said Obama’s fundraising total was impressive. “That is a ‘wow’ moment. No question about that. It’s an enormous amount of money.”
In contrast to Obama’s massive war chest, McCain’s filing with the Federal Election Commission said he has $47 million to spend in October after spending $37 million in September.
McCain is relying on $84.1 million in federal financing, which limits him from directly raising additional money. And the support he expected from state GOP offices may be drying up. The Florida GOP is saving at least $2 million to spend on the 2010 election cycle.
Bloomberg estimates Obama will have $200 million more total to spend over the last two weeks of the campaign than McCain.
And what will the Obama campaign be spending that extra money on? How about advertisements touting the candidate’s most significant endorsement? Even former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich predicted as much on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday.
“What this just did in one sound bite—and I assume that sound bite will end up in an ad—is it eliminated the experience argument,” Gingrich said.
There’s no question Powell’s endorsement is devastating to McCain, both personally and politically. Mike Murphy, McCain’s senior strategist for his 2000 campaign, said as much on his blog at Time.
“I am not normally of the view that endorsements mean much in Presidential politics. But Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama today is a real sledgehammer blow to the already staggering McCain campaign. Not just because a Powell endorsement shores up Obama’s shaky foreign policy bonafides, but even more because of the content of Powell’s remarks on “Meet the Press.” The General showed he still knows how to launch a brutal offense.”
We know how important momentum, or the appearance of momentum in the eye of the media, is over the last stretch of the campaign, and Obama is clearly surging now. Time magazine’s Mark Halperin predicts the real benefit of the Powell endorsement is it keeps the spotlight on Obama. He writes:
“However, the indisputable benefit that Powell brings Obama is that the former Secretary of State and general is sure to block out any chance McCain has of winning the next two or three days of news coverage, as the media swoons over the implications of the choice. It is simple political math: McCain has 15 days to close a substantial gap, and he will now lose at least one fifth of his total remaining time.”
Colin Powell brings new credibility to Obama’s bid for the presidency, and with his enormous fundraising totals, Obama can ensure voters are hearing his message, not McCain’s. Talk about a tough one-two punch.