That Noise? It's the Jingling of Warchests

By Frank Pellegrini Wednesday, Aug. 11, 1999
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Soft money? This is a pillow factory. With the House of Representatives tantalizingly up for grabs in 2000 - only 5 seats separate the Democrats from resurrection and the Republicans from ignominy - the fundraising race is on. And according to candidates own reporting to the Federal Election Commission for the first six months of the year (and remember, these six months are the first of these guys terms; no wonder so little legislation gets passed) the totals are already in the stratosphere. The trend is most striking among the vulnerable. This time in 1997, Democratic freshmen had an average of $74,000 in the bank at the end of their first six months of fund-raising; now that number is $206,000. Republican freshmen, likewise, had banked an average of $109,000; this year, its $203,000. "We're raising record numbers, they're raising record numbers," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who heads the House Republicans campaign arm. "It's Armageddon."

TIME congressional correspondent Jay Carney says its simply the way of the world. "Its the rule of politics - you need money to win, and these days the effort is starting earlier than ever," he says. "Republicans have traditionally raised more soft money, but in 1996, Clinton demonstrated that Democrats could raise the big money too, and now its an all-out competition to win the House in 2000." When the returns roll in, on that Tuesday night still 15 months away, the pundits will chalk victory up to the issues. The winners will play along. Democrats, if they retake their old stronghold, will declare that America is tired of guns and elitist tax cuts and overarching HMOs. The Republicans, if they hang on, will claim a mandate to refund Americans their money and reclaim for them their values. What the new majority is least likely to fulminate about, at least with any sincerity, is the insidious presence of money in politics. Theyll know the real reason they won is the size of their war chests, and 2002 - another chance to retake, or hang on -- will look closer than ever.