WASHINGTON — In her book, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann gushes with pride at the way she and her husband, Marcus, were able to quickly pay down their college loan debt.
“I had zero debt when I graduated college; Marcus owed $1,500,” she writes. “Our first paychecks went to pay off his student loan debt, and by Christmas, we were 100 percent debt free. … Frugality and taking good care of things we had — that’s all in my blood.”
Frugality may be in Bachmann’s blood, but it’s not in her campaign’s balance sheets. Bachmann’s presidential run left her campaign arm nearly $450,000 in debt, a sum promising to test the reliability of one of politics’ best fundraising bases.
Bachmann raised more than $10.1 million for her presidential bid from contributors often donating no more than a hundred dollars each. She has one of the best grass-roots fundraising organizations of any House member — they made Bachmann’s 2010 re-election campaign the richest in history in 2010 — but the question is whether they’re willing to finance both a House re-election bid and Bachmann’s debt service after donating to a short-lived long-shot presidential campaign.
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Appealing to small donors
Bachmann already has begun trying to replenish her depleted war chest. She sent out a note to supporters last week asking for contributions (small ones: $25 to $250) using a donor list that swelled while on the presidential campaign trail. Her new re-election campaign manager, Chase Kroll, said the results have been positive.
“One of the benefits of the presidential run was the significant expansion of her already impressive donor base,” he said in an email. “Avoiding specifics, I can tell you that the last fortnight has demonstrated the productivity of that new list. We remain highly confident in our fundraising.”
But Bachmann was already a national fundraiser before her presidential run, often attracting larger donations nationally than in Minnesota: 69 percent of contributions larger than $200 came from out-of-state donors in 2010, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Beyond that, much of Bachmann’s base consists of relentlessly small donors who have supported her because she was a rising tea party figure. Now that she’s balancing a House re-election campaign and the remnants of her presidential bid, she must convince those small donors that she’s not only deserving of their normal campaign contributions, but actually worthy of more financial support than they would have given in the past. That’s not an easy argument to make, given the embarrassing ending to her presidential campaign.
“When she ran for Congress two years ago, she was a rising star and people want to give money to rising stars,” Hamline University law professor David Schultz said of Bachmann’s 2010 run, when she raised $13.5 million. “She clearly doesn’t have the same star quality that she had two years ago that made it a lot easier to raise a lot of money.”
Also at play: the make-up of Bachmann’s district. A state court panel will unveil new congressional district lines later this month, and Bachmann’s 6th district needs to shed 100,000 voters. If the new lines are overly favorable to Republicans and scare off viable DFL competition, Bachmann might struggle to convince donors that she truly needs their support. But if Democrats are able to field a reputable challenger (or, worst case for her, if Bachmann is redistricted into neighboring Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum’s district), it could inspire larger contributions.
“If she’s in a really intense, bitterly fought battle, that might make it easier for her to make money,” Schultz said.
No repayment deadline
Legally, there’s no rush for Bachmann to pay off her presidential debts immediately. Indebted candidates can carry their debt for years, as long as they’re eventually able to keep their commitments to their vendors. Hillary Clinton, who racked up more than $25 million in debt during her primary battle with Barack Obama in 2008, still owes her campaign adviser’s firm $245,000, according to her most recent FEC filing.
“It’s not at all unusual for presidential candidates to have years elapse before everything is closed out,” Center for Responsive Politics senior analyst Bob Biersack said. “It can linger for a long period of time.”
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Bachmann, obviously, has a much lighter debt burden than Clinton and still has fundraising momentum, given her decision to run for re-election to the House. Former presidential candidates who carry debt and have no back-up plan politically tend to have a tougher go at it.
But Biersack said most follow the model former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has adapted — liquidate resources, secure refunds for prepaid services, sell such assets as the campaign’s supporter database (which, in Pawlenty’s case, fetched a cool $45,000 from former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman’s American Action Network) and rely on donations from supporters and even former foes, who often encourage their backers to give financial support to fallen rivals.
Pawlenty, for example, received $66,000 from Mitt Romney cohorts during the last fundraising quarter, part of a $400,000 haul Pawlenty used to cut his post-campaign debt from $450,000 to just over $100,000 in three months.
But for Pawlenty, time is of the essence, Schultz said, since donors eventually look to direct their contributions to active candidates.
In that sense, Bachmann has plenty of time to inspire financial support from her backers. Now it’s a matter of whether they’re willing and able to help her pay her debts.
