Romney kicks in $3 million to NRCC, NRSC

How well has Mitt Romney’s fundraising proceeded?  So well that he’s willing to share the wealth:

Romney’s biggest grossing committee last month steered at least $3 million to boost GOP congressional candidates who will share the ballot with him, according to finance reports filed last week.

Romney Victory, a joint fundraising committee set up by Romney’s campaign and the Republican National Committee, on the last day of July transferred $1.5 million each to the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

The July transfers, reported here for the first time, were revealed in the congressional committees’ latest Federal Election Commission reports. They helped both committees outraise their Democratic competitors – the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Contrast this with Barack Obama’s own refusal to redistribute funds raised by the partnership between his campaign and the DNC:

Obama’s campaign had transferred money to the Democratic committees in 2008 and 2010, but has yet to do so this year, despite pleas from top Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Reid and Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). They and other lawmakers have implored Obama’s campaign both to transfer at least $10 million to the Party’s congressional campaign arms and also not to max out wealthy donors.

The reluctance of Obama to heed such requests – and Romney’s willingness to make such transfers – is another in a series of troubling signs on the money front for Democrats.

Actually, the reticence of Obama didn’t start when the fundraising deficit between the Obama and Romney campaigns began three months ago.  In March, Politico reported that Obama had already made up his mind to be stingy with the two Democratic congressional committees:

President Barack Obama has a bleak message for House and Senate Democrats this year when it comes to campaign cash: You’re on your own.

Democratic congressional leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, have privately sought as much as $30 million combined from Obama for America and the Democratic National Committee — a replay of the financial help they received from Obama in 2008 and 2010.

But that’s not going to happen, top Obama aides Jim Messina and David Plouffe told Reid and Pelosi in back-to-back meetings on Capitol Hill on Thursday, according to sources familiar with the high-level talks. It was a stark admission from a presidential campaign once expected to rake in as much as $1 billion of just how closely it is watching its own bottom line.

Messina and Plouffe told the two Hill leaders that there would be no cash transfers to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from OFA or the DNC, at least not before Election Day, the sources said.

I’d guess that the fundraising problems had already become apparent by March, but not the risk of getting so thoroughly beaten on that front.  They certainly knew that Team Obama couldn’t count on parity on the super-PAC front, but everyone assumed that the Obama campaign would at least keep pace with the Romney campaign, if not outraise them.  Instead, despite Barack Obama having conducted a record number of fundraisers, far outstripping George W. Bush’s 2003-4 number months ago, Team Obama is more than $60 million behind at the end of last month.

The move is also interesting for another reason.  Those conservatives who are less than enthused by a Romney candidacy have pledged to work for a Republican majority in the Senate and stronger majority in the House to keep Romney on the conservative policy path.  As this donation shows, Romney seems to be in complete agreement with them.  He also seems a lot more confident than Team Obama in the most solid measure of all — putting its money where its mouth is.

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