DENVER—The protracted race for the Democratic presidential nomination is complicating efforts to raise millions of dollars to stage the party’s national convention in Denver.
In previous election years, the nominee has been apparent by this time, and the host city has been able to rely on the winner’s supporters to raise convention money.
But with the outcome between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama still up in the air, Denver’s host committee is having to raise money on its own.
“It does make it a little harder to raise money when people don’t know who the candidate is,” Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said. “You have to spend more time on the phone, more weekends.”
The Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee is responsible for raising about $60 million in cash and in-kind contributions before the convention August 25-28. The national party has set a series of deadlines for raising the money.
The next is March 17, when the committee is supposed to have a total of $28 million by the end of the day.
Denver fell more than $1 million short of a $7.5-million benchmark last June, but managed to meet a Dec. 14 threshold with $15 million.
It’s not clear how much the heated primary campaign has affected Denver’s host committee. The group’s spokesman, Chris Lopez, said Monday “we are not discussing fundraising until next week.”
Before they settled on a convention site, national Democratic officials were concerned about the ability of a mid-size city like Denver to raise money. But local officials have said in the past they were ahead of the pace Boston set for the 2004 convention.
Previous convention committees could count on money from deep-pocket supporters of the likely nominee in part because giving to the host committee does not count against federal campaign contribution limits. The convention provides an alternative way to support the candidate.
“The tradition has been that the host committee and the party raised as much they could, and then once the nominee had become de facto, their supporters were able to come in and finish things off,” said Chris Gates, a former state Democratic chairman who helped bring the convention to Denver.
“That’s what happened with (Vice President Al) Gore (in 2000) and that’s what happened with (Sen. John) Kerry” in 2004,” he said.
The fact that no clear front-runner has emerged also means that Democrats may exhaust some donors with regular pleas for money in the primary campaign.
“It’s sort of a double hit,” Gates said. “It freezes donors because they are waiting to see who the nominee is … but the other thing is these (candidates) are still raising money at a clip of a couple million a day.”
California-based Democratic strategist Bill Carrick said the uncertainty surrounding the convention might give fundraisers an angle previous conventions have not had.
“It might be that we have somewhat of a ‘looky-loo’ effect,” he said. “It’s so complicated and interesting that many people will give money just so they’re guaranteed they get a good seat.”
