'We're f*cked,' a senior aide to one of the candidates explained
Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker are among the candidates who were already fighting to maintain their relevance in the race. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images The closing days of a fundraising quarter are usually hectic for presidential candidates and their top-level staffers, who are tasked with pulling in every last dime they can find and figuring out what to do with the cash. This week — punctuated by the lightning-fast ramp-up of an official impeachment inquiry into the president — was different.
That’s because impeachment, for this crowd, couldn’t have come at a more delicate time: the end of the final quarter before most pols believe the race gets serious, and therefore the exact moment they were banking on generating as much coverage and attention as possible, to raise as much money as possible — to keep afloat for as long as possible, or to finally make much-needed campaign hires and investments just as voters start paying serious attention.
The likely difficulty for candidates from El Paso to Minneapolis isn’t just an inability to break through in the saturated national media environment, though that is one concern. Instead, it’s the subsequent lack of cash that begets a long-term inability to build up infrastructure in early-voting states and to invest in paid advertising, which a consultant to a middle-tier campaign characterized as the “one way you can break through right now,” since ads aren’t dependent on the news cycle.
So far, candidates are largely playing it safe and keeping their heads down — they’ll answer questions about impeachment when asked, and issue statements, but no campaign has yet reset its messaging to be all about Trump’s corruption or the investigation.
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Impeachment Inquiry Tests Focus of Biden and His 2020 RivalsJoe Biden and other Democrats competing for the 2020 presidential nomination face a difficult challenge in preventing their campaign messages from being blotted out by the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
Read more »
Ryan Murphy Says ‘Impeachment: American Crime Story’ Release Date Isn’t Locked“Impeachment: American Crime Story” may not necessarily be released in September 2020 as previously announced, creator Ryan Murphy indicated to a New York Times reporter, expressing sur…
Read more »
Vote Trump? That’s what these Wall Street Democrats say they might do if Elizabeth Warren gets the nomination'You’re in a box because, you’re a Democrat and you’re thinking, “I want to help the party, but she’s going to hurt me, so I’m going to help President Trump”’ ThursdayThoughts
Read more »
2020 Vision Friday: Pelosi's party shouldn't be afraid of impeachment, history suggestsPundits and partisans have been making the same prediction since the start of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation in 2017: The American people don’t like impeachment. Then Ukraine happened, and Pelosi’s stance changed — as did the stances of dozens of vulnerable House Democrats. Has the electoral calculus
Read more »