No faxing cash advance

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Haley Barbour knows a bit about raising big money. The former Republican chairman once bobbed around Hong Kong Harbor, persuading a businessman to pony up a couple of million dollars to a GOP policy group. So when even Barbour complains that next year's presidential primary season puts too much pressure on the dash for dollars, something is definitely up. Everything, it seems, is accelerated this year. "Because of the front-loading," Barbour says, "people really need to raise their money early."

Barbour's concern is echoed by leaders in both parties. Vice President Al Gore has already announced his candidacy, with aides citing the need to scoop up funds as the reason for the premature plunge into Campaign 2000. Fueling the frenzy is the new, abbreviated primary schedule: Most delegates could be committed by the California and New York primaries, set for March 7.

The latest entry into the money hunt is former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander. The perennial presidential candidate comes out of the gate with $5 million in his political action committees. But he's taking nothing for granted. He heads to Florida soon for his first official fund-raiser, "to get early money from people who are wintering in Naples," says his money man, Ted Welch.

Alexander is just one of several GOP contenders competing for cash. Among them: Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former Vice President Dan Quayle, and New Hampshire Sen. Robert C. Smith. Republican colleagues Texas Gov. George W. Bush, House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich of Ohio, former American Red Cross head Elizabeth Dole, conservative lobbyist Gary Bauer, and media magnate Steve Forbes, while publicly mum, are privately trolling for cash. "We're already raising money," says Richard Norman, fund-raiser for Quayle. "The process happens so quickly that every candidate has to raise the maximum allowable to be spent in each state."

Friends in deed. Political fund-raisers estimate that a viable candidate for the next White House must net between $22 million and $25 million by the end of this year--which translates into more than $60,000 a day. That's a lot of phone calls and faxing, since individuals can give candidates a maximum of $1,000, and political action committees are capped at $5,000. "I simply need to call on 15,000 of my closest friends and get them to give $1,000 each," jokes Senator McCain. "Besides, most campaigns are profligate. When I campaigned with Bob Dole, he didn't even know many of the staffers on his own campaign plane. Small organizations work best."

Maybe. But they haven't won many presidential elections lately. As GOP financial strategist Stan Huckaby says in his guide for presidential hopefuls, the candidate who has become the party's nominee in the past five elections was the one with the most cash at the end of the year before the election. And that amount has been steadily rising. During the entire 1992 campaign cycle, presidential candidates spent about $296 million, Federal Election Commission records show. By 1996, presidential candidates spent more than $393 million.

"It's nightmarish," says Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a watchdog group. The increasing price tag has already claimed its first casualty: Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft dropped out of the race last week, a move supporters attribute to difficulty raising funds.

Gore has the natural fund-raising edge all incumbents enjoy--despite his high-profile role in his party's 1996 campaign finance fiasco. In fact, Democratic strategists say the Gore camp is actually aiming for about $40 million. It will be tougher for Democratic challenger Bill Bradley, especially if the former New Jersey senator wants to retain his reputation as a reform candidate. McCain, who bucked the party line by pushing campaign finance reform and taking on Big Tobacco, is in basically the same boat. But he begins the race with $2 million that he can transfer from his last Senate campaign. "It's unfortunate, but it is a fact of life that that kind of money is needed, given the current circumstances," says a spokesman for Bradley, who has raised only about $130,000 so far. Like other recent presidential wannabes, Bradley has supplemented his official campaign fund with his so-called leadership PAC--a fund that he uses to contribute to other candidates and, at the same time, to underwrite expenses to advance his own candidacy. Such vehicles save candidates money and serve as predictors of presidential fund-raising ability. In the 1997-98 election cycle, Quayle's Campaign America raised nearly $6 million. (Showing enviable bravado, Quayle fund-raiser Norman says his candidate is now aiming for $33 million.) Gore's leadership PAC garnered almost $4.3 million, Bauer's Campaign for Working Families attracted nearly $7 million, and Bradley's Time Future took in just under $390,000.

The Republican expected to have the easiest ride on the money trail is the former president's son. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Bush raised more than $24 million for his 1998 gubernatorial race between July 1995 and October 1998. Tom Korologos, the Washington lobbyist and GOP fund-raiser, says Bush's fund-raising ability is so strong that he should consider taking a page from Forbes's self-financed $37.4 million 1996 campaign. Forbes declined federal matching funds because he didn't want to be constrained by the spending limits acceptance requires. "It's a gamble," Korologos says. "It's a lot of money to turn down, but you can't get it until August, and by then it's no good."