starwars

Washington Post
http://tinyurl.com/j21r

The nine Democrats seeking the 2004 nomination are in a bind,
party activists say. Even if they choose to abandon public
financing and the spending limits that go with them, they can
raise nowhere near the sums that Bush is hauling in, these
sources say...

The recently enacted McCain-Feingold law bans unlimited "soft
money" contributions to national parties, depriving Democrats of
a key source of cash from unions and Hollywood figures. The law
limits donations to presidential candidates to $2,000, and
Republicans have far more supporters able and willing to give
that amount of money than do Democrats.

...Unless one of the current Democratic candidates opts to forgo
public funding, all of them risk having to spend nearly all the
$46 million available for the primary by the early date of March
15. The Democratic National Committee, no longer eligible to
collect soft money, will be able to provide only modest support
after that. The strongest Democrat will have to wait until late
July, when the nomination is formally awarded, to qualify for
the $75 million in federal general election money.

During this bleak May-to-July window, Bush, in contrast, expects
to have as much as $200 million to spend before he wins the GOP
nomination in early September. In addition, the soft money ban
has proven far less burdensome to the Republican Party than to
the Democrats.