It’s an old campaign tactic. Come out with some news a day ahead of your opponent and lure a gullible reporter into writing a story favorable to your side.
Sure sounds like the formula that resulted in Foon Rhee’s story in today’s Globe (A 16) “McCain’s Fund-raising machine rolling along.” By gosh! McCain raised $27 million in July! It has a terrific quote from McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, to the point that, “McCain is consolidating the Republican base, attracting disaffected Democrats, and putting together the broad base of support he has typically had.” So McCain raised $27 million in July and had $21.4 million in cash on hand with approximately 600,000 donors.
Sounds great. Except for one thing. Obama raised more than $51 million in July. His campaign began August with $65.8 million on hand and has had more than 2 million donors.
Now the Globe could have waited a day before running a breathless story about McCain’s fund-raising success (with photo, yet). But keeping to its motto: “Owned by moguls, written by interns” we get nothing of the sort, just the usual journalistic embarrassment, which the Globe folks are, by this point, way beyond.
And while the McCain fund-raising machine is rolling along, those “disaffected Democrats” just keep peeling off the Obama wagon. Really! Rick Davis says so.
