Financial Profile Friday: John Edwards

For the next few Fridays, I’m going to focus on a single candidate’s finances — show you where the money is coming from and where it’s going. I’m planning to switch off political parties: I don’t want to pick on anyone too much, or give the impression that I’m being softer on one party than another.

Today, we’re going to take a quick look at John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina. Edwards had a bit of a head start on fundraising for the 2008 primaries: many of his supporters from his 2004 team-up with Al Gore were still in place. Furthermore, Edwards had very little debt to repay after his 2004 campaign.

Opensecrets.org lists Edwards’ campaign finances as follows:

Total Receipts: $30,329,152
Total Spent: $17,932,103
Cash on Hand: $12,397,048
Debts: $0

The majority of donations to Edwards’ campaign have come from lawyers and law firms (over $8 million). Edwards had an extremely successful career before entering politics, winning over $60 million in settlements during his time as a plaintiff’s attorney.

His top donors are ActBlue (a Democratic PAC that has provided him with almost $2 million) and Fortress Investment Group (a hedge fund that Edwards worked for following the 2004 presidential election, almost $200,000). Edwards’ ties to Fortress have come up for plenty of scrutiny. While Edwards no longer works for Fortress, his campaign has held fundraisers at the firm. However, plenty of other candidates are getting donations from hedge funds — it just goes to show how intertwined business and politics are.

Where has Edwards been spending money?

He’s running a very internet-savvy campaign, complete with blogs, podcasts and online fundraising. Joe Trippi is one of Edwards’ senior advisers. Trippi is online political fundraising: he was the mastermind behind Dean’s 2004 campaign, essentially the first presidential campaign to make effective use of the Internet. Edwards has been able to leverage Trippi’s skills effectively, but Trippi and Edwards’ other campaign staff have accounted for the biggest chunk of Edwards’ budget: almost $6 million for salaries and benefits, $780K for fundraising consultants, $530K for political consultants and $145K for administrative consultants.

So far, Edwards has been concentrating on advertising in vital primary states, such as Iowa  and New Hampshire. He expects a good showing in South Carolina, but seems to be in a financial pinch for a long campaign, especially when stacking his financials against Clinton’s and Obama’s. Edwards has focused first on direct mail techniques, followed up by telemarketing, in the advertising arena.

Edwards has accepted public financing for his campaign, which points to the idea that money is an issue for his campaign. It also enforces a number of limitations, which Trippi vehemently opposed during his time with Dean. It’ll be interesting to see how he can manage. Furthermore, Edwards has announced that he won’t won’t take support from 527s (although there seem to have been a few slip ups regarding a 527 called the Alliance for a New America in Iowa).