October 4, 2007 1:00 PM
Show Joe the money
View image Photo by M.E. Sprengelmeyer
By M.E. Sprengelmeyer
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
DES MOINES, Iowa -- A couple months after he apologized to supporters for his sluggish fundraising machine, Sen. Joe Biden conceded Thursday that he raised even less money for the third quarter of the year.
Biden told reporters outside East High School in Des Moines that he's still confident he can find a late breakthrough in the Democratic presidential contest.
But with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton beginning to widen her lead both in polls and in the campaign money chase, lower-tier candidates like Biden increasingly must fight to remain viable and relevant.
"I'm satisfied," Biden said of the nearly $2 million he raised in the third quarter of the year.
In July, when his campaign raised nearly $2.5 million -- a fraction of the $33 million raised that quarter by Sen. Barack Obama and also less than Clinton and three other candidates -- Biden apologized to supporters at an IowaPolitics.com forum in Des Moines.
"Look, I've got to admit to you one thing," Biden said at the time. "I thought a lot more about what I would do as president than how to get elected president. I'm trying like the devil to change that."
Although his revamped fundraising operation raised even less this quarter, Biden said his campaign remains on track.
"We've raised close to $2 million. That's all we need to be able to do what we're doing in the early states," Biden said on Thursday. "The bad news is the good news. The good news is that our focus is on the first four early states. If we do well there, we're gonna win this thing. If we don't do well there, we're gone. But then again, those with $75 million, if they don't do well there, too, they're gone. So we feel good about it."
View image Photo by M.E. Sprengelmeyer
Although official figures won't be released until next week, Obama is expected to show raising $75 million for this election cycle, ahead of Clinton's $62 million. But Clinton appears to have topped the field in the July to September period by raising $22 million -- including about $8 million just from online contributions.
By contrast, Biden, who is still in the low single-digits in national polls, has raised a total of less than $9 million for the year, meaning he'll be operating more on a shoestring budget in the final three-month sprint to the Iowa precinct caucuses.
He's still hoping for a breakthrough to the top tier, buoyed by his recent success in getting the U.S. Senate -- including many Republican colleagues -- to endorse his goal for solving the Iraq crisis by calling for the country to be divided into three semi-autonomous, ethnic regions.
And on Thursday, he visited the high school in Des Moines to tout a comprehensive education reform plan that would add 100,000 new teachers to America's schools, bolster early childhood education and provide education tax refunds so that virtually all students can afford at least two years of college.
"How do you plan on getting more money for the schools with a war going on?" one student asked Biden on Thursday.
"End the war," Biden quickly replied.
He said his education reforms would cost about $30 billion per year -- about what the United States spends every three months in Iraq. And he'd also cancel tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans to pay for the plan.
"Everything's priorities, and the priority for me is education," said Biden, who is married to a former teacher. "It's the key to our economic growth, the key to our social stability and the key to us being able to be competitive in the world."
Although Biden visited the school to highlight his education plan, even there he could not avoid questions about his viability in the crowded presidential contest.
One man in the crowd offered him praise but also asked how he was finally going to gain traction in the contest.
Without hesitation, Biden shot back: "Show me the money."
View image Photo by M.E. Sprengelmeyer
P.S. O. Kay Henderson at Radio Iowa focuses on a misplaced letter during Biden's appearance this morning. Lookie HERE.
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