As money is the mother’s milk of politics, some of Maryland’s Democrats gathered the other afternoon to do their bit for the current campaigns, in multiples of $1,000 a person. They met at the Baltimore County home of Lynn and Ted Venetoulis, and packed the place, and schmoozed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Gov. Martin O’Malley, and other party leaders.
The country may be going through economic tremors, but the Democrats can hardly keep track of all the dough they’re bringing in these days.
In his race for the White House, Barack Obama reportedly has $134 million in the bank, while John McCain reportedly has $47 million. Across the country, Obama has reportedly spent three times as much money on TV advertising as McCain.
In Maryland, so much Democratic money is pouring in, and so many volunteers are signing up to knock on doors and work the phones, that they’re spreading the wealth around.
Some goes to Pennsylvania, some to Virginia, some to West Virginia. Whoever heard, in the last several decades, of Democrats believing they’ve got a shot in Virginia or West Virginia?
Yet, there was O’Malley, standing there Sunday afternoon, and ripping off some pretty astonishing figures. He said Maryland volunteers made 20,000 calls to Virginia voters, door-to-door and by telephone — in one day. He said 1,500 Marylanders were being exported to Pennsylvania and West Virginia, by bus and by caravan, to help out on weekends. Then Michael Cryor, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said Marylanders had made 750,000 calls on Virginia voters.
On Monday, a phone call was placed to Cryor to check on O’Malley’s figures. Cryor’s figures were even more remarkable. He said Democrats have registered 225,000 new voters since Jan. 1, and Republicans only 39,000.
He also said the Democrats had signed up 187,000 volunteers in Maryland.
“That sounds impossible,” Cryor was told.
“I know,” he said. “It’s incredible. It’s astonishing.”
Later in the day, he had an aide call back to say the 187,000 figure was wrong.
“Of course,” the aide was told.
“The actual figure,” said the aide, “is 216,000.”
By midweek, there were national polls showing Obama leading Republican John McCain by 13 points, by 14 points, by 10 points.
Some state-by-state breakdowns indicated Obama well past the necessary 270 Electoral College votes if the election were held now.
From here, the presidential race sometimes seems a distant struggle. With Maryland not considered a battleground state, there’s no sense of front-porch action. Neither party has done much visible campaigning here.
“Excluding Hawaii and D.C.,” said Cryor, “we’re probably the bluest state in the nation. So we have money and manpower to spread around.”
This was evident at last Sunday’s Democratic gathering here. The event was hosted by Venetoulis, the former Baltimore County executive, and Tommy D’Alesandro III, the former mayor of Baltimore whose sister is Pelosi.
The mood at the gathering, already optimistic, was heightened by the morning’s news of Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama.
“Obama’s gonna win big,” Hoyer said.
“Let’s be very optimistic,” Pelosi said. “We’re going to win. We’re seeing a shift all over the country. Even bigger, sad to say, since the economy.”
She mentioned the $700 billion financial rescue plan, and a telephone call she made to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson the day before the news broke about Wall Street’s collapse.
“We called Paulson at 3 o’clock that Thursday afternoon,” said Pelosi, “and told him we wanted a meeting at 9 o’clock the next morning. He said, ‘We can’t wait that long.’ ”
As Pelosi’s ominous words hung in the air, no one in the Democratic gathering made a sound.
“So we called [Federal Reserve Chairman Ben] Bernanke,” said Pelosi, “and told him, ‘We need to meet first thing Monday.’ He said, ‘No. If we don’t act right now, we may not have an economy by Monday.’ And this man’s a student of the Great Depression.”
So the $700 billion bailout was passed, said Pelosi, despite considerable misgivings. “We hated the bill,” she said. “But we weren’t going to have an economy if we didn’t do something fast.”
In Washington, and in New York, they’re still trying to make the arithmetic work. Whoever wins the White House 12 days from now will take office facing the most complex economic problems in many years.
The national polls say voters feel more economic confidence with Democrats. Maybe that’s a reflection on McCain, but maybe not.
Maybe it’s just eight years of trouble landing at McCain’s feet.
But it’s working to Democrats’ political advantage right now. And it’s adding to their bank accounts, too, in ways once considered unimaginable.
