The Cash Trail

In the classic tale of journalism, All the President’s Men, Deep Throat urges Woodward and Bernstein to “follow the money, follow the money.” Michael Cornfield, a George Washington University political scientist suggested at the lunch meeting today that journalists do the same thing to create unique content. Cornfield said the story that nobody is covering is the donors of for each candidate, who they are, what they want, and what they think their money is buying.

Of course, this story is covered in brief flurries that accompany major fundraising announcements, such as the blockbuster news of two weeks ago that the candidates have summed $150 million in contributions in the first quarter of 2007.

But too often this quickly gives way to speculation about the “mood” of the country, poll-watching, and day-to-day recounting of campaign events, all things as Cornfield pointed out, that can be just as easily learned from reading blogs.  Plus, a political blog comes equipped with forums, comment sections, and other interactive features that the dead-tree pages of old media don’t offer.

To stand out, a paper needs to take advantages of its natural advantages: full-time reporters with the time and resources to research donors, talk to their friends, co-workers, and find out who is backing each candidate. 

What Cornfield didn’t mention is a natural disadvantage of the paper: their stated mission is to provide the average man on the street with the news of the day.  That average man is really a combination of intense daily readers, and occasional readers, and people who don’t know that the prosecutor guy on Law and Order is also a former senator who might run for president.

So for those of us that are political junkies it is tiresome to see yet another New York Times article with a headline like “Conservatives Not Enthusiastic About ‘08 Candidates,” every week or so.  But to those who have just picked up a paper for the first time this year, this probably makes for interesting reading.

Sites like politico.com, the Daily Kos, or Townhall.com don’t have to worry about how acquainted their audiences are with the latest political developments; nobody would go to these sites if they had not been following the latest news in the field. 

But that news has to come from somewhere, so newspapers have their work cut out for them.  It takes time to read through campaign finance statements, and research donor information.  But look at what gems it can reveal.  The following list of revealing campaign expenditures the reporters at Slate.com unveiled this morning:

* John Edwards spent campaign funds on two separate $400 haircuts this quarter

* Mitt Romney is the cheapest, making his staff double up at Super 8 motels, and offering them subsidized snacks (25 cents per soda, 50 cents per vending machine item) rather than buying them outright.

* Hillary Clinton owes a polling firm $277,000, and has spent by far the most on polling information.

Try and find a blogger who wants to parse pages and pages of financial statements to come up with these.