The Money Pit and the Vipers, GOP Edition

Campaign Money: The Amounts, Where It Came From and What It Means.

"O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things?"
-- Jesus in Matthew 12:34, KJV.

Top Fundraisers, 2008 Republican Candidates for President:

1. Mitt Romney raised $20.6 million. (He kicked in over $2 million of his own money to bring the total to $23 million.)
Mitt the Affable Boob is collecting his money from the same sources that George W. Bush tapped in his campaigns -- Big Oil, lobbyists, filthy rich corporatists, Saudi royals by way of US cut-outs, other assorted Bush cronies -- along with a substantial amount from Mormons in Utah. When Dubya leaves office, the Bushes want to maintain lucrative connections to the top spot and they think Romney has the best chance to win in 2008. They've apparently perceived Mitt as someone who is authoritarian 'Daddy' enough for the GOP base, but unthreatening and reassuring to the gen-pop as well. Watch for him to be marketed as Ward Cleaver in a Craftsman tools ad; calm, smiling, always ready with a quick focus-group-popular answer to every complicated problem. A steady hand on the wheel with a truckload of safe soundbites. Meanwhile, rumors fly that, while Rove trainees infest the McCain train wreck, the Man Himself, the one whom Bush media courtier Mike Allen of The Politico respectfully calls 'Mr. Rove,' is set to take the reins backstage in the Romney campaign. Said to be joining him will be GOP propaganda hustler Frank Luntz. The strategy will be simple, and similar to the one Rove concocted for Bush: Romney stays cool and on-message, a statesman above the fray, while Rove operatives play every underhanded Swift Boat trick in Karl's playbook to decimate the opposition, making his candidate, however reprehensible, look less reprehensible than the competition. Ann Coulter has already endorsed Romney, and she holds sway with the fanged and venomous GOP collegiates. Party insider James Dobson has also bubbled over Mitt, and he appeals to the rubber room Christians. Soon, Fox Newsers and other rightie mouthpieces will be extolling his virtues and rewriting his pro-choice social liberal past. Will it work? Not this time around methinks; while Mitt may nail the nomination, 'Republican' 'incompetence' and 'failure' are closely connected in the public mind, and he's so much of a glad-handing empty suit, he'll turn off a good portion of his own party, so he's unlikely to get elected. It's not 'morning in America' anymore and it's all the GOP's fault. Still, the Repubs have to field someone and, unless Fred Thompson makes a run, he's their best shot. Maybe lightning will strike and videos of Hillary skinny-dipping with Snoop Dogg, Obama at a Klan rally, or Edwards beating up homeless orphans will surface. (Maybe Rove will photo-shop them for The Internets.)

2. Rudy Giuliani raised $15 million.
Rudy raised his cake by putting the arm on the usual collection of GOP corporations, lobbyists and well-heeled donors who recognize a born supplicant when they see one, a sweaty, anxious Willy Loman ready to do favors for the elite in return for the trappings of power and a few crumbs from the table. Of course America's Mare didn't fare well with individual contributions, especially from the Christian Coalitionists and other national keyhole peepers, but who cares about them? The scheme was to ride the Hero of 9/11 hobby-horse to victory, but then the Bush family stuck a dagger in Rudy's back and threw in with Romney. Perhaps the Bushies realized that once details of the Giuliani-Kerik Company's fetid business deals float to the surface, the New York City firefighters and cops Rudy has stiffed get their say, added to his pro-choice leanings, ignorance of foreign affairs, multiple acrimonious divorces, and his generally atrocious private personality, Rudy's going to end up about as popular as a pigeon with diarrhea flying over a Central Park jogging path. Already, for the purported GOP front-runner, this $15 mil is nearly an insult -- His Almighty Hero-ness can't collect more money than Hillary or that black kid? Holy crap! Also, the US mainstream media, scrawling Mayor Chrome Dome's name in their high school notebooks with little hearts for punctuation, have missed a salient point about their political beau: He's a terrible public speaker. His buck-toothed lisp reminds one of a wacky wabbit rather than George S. Patton, and his speeches shut eyes as he steps all over his best lines. To see what I mean, look at his shabby performance at the CPAC gathering in March; you could almost taste the ennui of the audience. Chris Matthews may think he's 'tough,' but once Republicans get a gander at this goose in debate, he's cooked. And McCain, as the flames engulf his campaign cockpit, will make a last desperate attempt to shoot Rudy down with nasty smear ads and push-poll calls ala what Bush did to McCain in 2000. Likely, with so much ammunition provided by Hizzoner, this will work and both he and Rudy will crash and burn.

3. John McCain raised $12.5 million.
A report the other day on MSNBC pretty much sums up why McCain is going in the tank: In response to his relatively low money draw, McCain is planning to employ even more ex-Bush operatives to 'restructure' his campaign. (He already has hired many of the benighted crew that put Dubya in office.) The man who has abandoned every principle he claimed to once endorse in order to endear himself to the Republican base has now become the loathed Junior's body double on losing issues like Iraq. He even talks and thinks like Bush these days: When you're tasting shoe leather, keep chewing, and when the fire's out of control, pour on more gas. But the belfry bats of the GOP base don't trust him, and true conservatives have dropped him like a bag of ripe manure, so he has no constituency left except a few Bushies who need jobs and the half-wit Washington media elite. Sure, the DC punditry gush over him, but they've been sniffing the tailpipe of the Straight Talk Express so long they're hallucinating it's still there. It isn't and it's not coming back. Today the hollow-eyed McCain, perhaps sensing his impending doom, travels the Sanjaya Malarkey route; a William Hung out to dry by the Bush apparatus, he's become a pathetic figure, singing along on any tired tune hummed by the White House, his raw white-knuckled ambition a public joke. Johnny will get his behind handed to him in Iowa and New Hampshire, if he lasts that long, and then it's over and out, Top Gun. There is only one thing that might save McCain at this point -- changing his name to Fred D. Thompson.

Next up: The top Democratic fundraisers.