What's Ron Paul doing with all his money? Newsweek's Sarah Elkins reports.
At Wednesday’s CNN/YouTube debate, Texas Congressman Ron Paul said his campaign is “struggling to figure out how to spend” the incredible amounts of money he’s been raising online.
Sorry, Dr. Paul. Your struggle is about to get a little tougher.
On Nov. 5, Paul supporters set the record for largest single-day Internet fundraising haul of all time—$4.2 million. Labeled a “moneybomb,” the effort thrust Paul into the national spotlight. Now, Trevor Lyman, the Miami Beach music promoter who organized the online fundraiser, is hoping to recapture the moneybomb magic. On Dec. 15, Paulites will participate in rallies across the country before launching a second mass-donation campaign at midnight on Dec. 16 (the 233rd anniversary of the Boston Tea Party). “The 16th will be big,” says Lyman, who's not affiliated with Paul’s official campaign. “We will beat our last record. I’m almost positive.”
Another multimillion-dollar bundle would be a tremendous boon for Paul, who is only two million shy of his $12 million fourth-quarter fundraising goal. But it underscores the central concern about his candidacy: Can all this cash actually catapult him to victory? “Money is a resource, not an outcome,” says unaffiliated GOP pollster and strategist David Winston. “And the fact that Ron Paul is saying he doesn’t know what to do with those resources says that, at this point, he doesn’t understand how to win. How does he go from 3 or 4 percent to 15 percent?”
Paul acknowledges that his “campaign people were squirming” during Wednesday’s debate. But he’s quick to add that his “struggling” comment was tongue-in-cheek. “I was poking a little fun at all those other Republicans,” he says. “Some Republicans around the country are closing up shop and firing people, and here we have all this money.”
How’s he spending it? Setting up new offices, for one (like a new HQ in Charleston, S.C.). Pumping money into radio and television ads. And beefing up his staff. At the start of the quarter, Paul’s campaign employed between 50 and 55 full-time staff members. That number has now hit 70. Fundraising Director Jonathan Bydlak claims that the extra cash will, in the end, equal more votes. “We are focusing the money on increasing Ron's visibility,” he says. “Right now, 60 percent of people in New Hampshire don't even know who Ron Paul is, and yet our numbers aren't far off from candidates who 100 percent of people in New Hampshire know. So imagine what they would be like if everybody was familiar with Ron Paul's message."
Whether or not spending is a “struggle,” Paul admits that the flood of cash does create challenges—like keeping clear of opportunists. “We’re not obsessed with spending [money] just for the sake of spending,” he says. “And we have so many volunteers and people who want to work on the campaign now, we have to be careful that people might be coming around who want to spend that money for us.”
Paul's job, between now and next spring, is to prove that those millions are in the right hands already.
