The Crossed Pond

That was the message at Ron Paul’s press conference this afternoon, and they made a surprisingly good case for it.

Their take: only three campaigns are fiscally secure and fecund—Paul’s, Rudy’s, Thompson’s.

More from Paul fundraising director Jonathan Bydlak…

- They’re still counting, but somewhere between 34,000 and 35,000 people donated to Paul last quarter.

- Another rough estimate: Less than 3 percent of Paul donors have maxed out donating to the campaign.

- Only Paul and Sam Brownback carried no debt into the fourth quarter. Brownback only has $94,654 in the bank; Paul has $5.4 million.

Watch them make the case:

Lots more here. Some key points:

# Both Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani spent more than they raised in Q3. Romney brought in $9.9M and spent $21.3M. Giuliani raised $11.6M and spent $13.3M.
# Mitt Romney often cites his executive prowess as a key credential in his White House bid. However, if the race ended today, his organization would have lost over $8M.
# John McCain is in the red. McCain claims to have $3.4M in the bank, but due to debt and money earmarked only for the general election, he is in the hole $53,446 for the primary.
# Dr. Paul outraised Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee, Tom Tancredo and Sam Brownback’s combined efforts by 61 percent. Dr. Paul’s $5.4M is 8.5 times greater than all of their cash on hand combined.
# Dr. Paul is the only top-tier candidate who carried no debt into the fourth quarter.
# Because of outstanding debt of $678,432, Fred Thompson actually has $6,443,312, less than $1M more than Dr. Paul.
# Rudy Giuliani has $11,428,979 available for the primary. While impressive, this is far from insurmountable for Dr. Paul and Mr. Thompson.

Admittedly, this is campaign spin. And also admittedly, the campaigns are not, strictly speaking, running a business, and there is a point beyond which the soundness of their finances aren’t going to mean all that much (nobody got elected based on a secure debt structure).

However, the Paul people make a sound point.

Romney is sinking millions into Iowa, and he’s essentially spent 20 million dollars to buy himself a decent early Iowa lead, and only 7% national support. This is not a sign that the Romney campaign is being driven by much other than Mr. Romney’s personal donations to himself. It’s also not a sign that their money is going very far. Despite this MASSIVE burn of money, if Romney doesn’t win Iowa, he’s out the next day. And even if he does win Iowa, who cares? Where does he go from there?

McCain is in even worse shape. If he doesn’t win New Hampshire, he’s out. He’s hanging on hoping for a massive swing back in his direction, but with almost literally no money to work with—and it seems unlikely that’s going to turn around either—how competitive can he be? And how does he capitalize at all on any minute momentum shift? He can get a decent showing in New Hampshire and never be heard from again.

The case for McCain or Romney as no longer being first tier candidates is getting stronger. They’re both closer to John Edwards than Barack Obama as far as that goes. And it’s very, very difficult to see how either are going to be in past the second week of January. It’s very, very easy to see how they might both sink within a week.

Meanwhile, the Paul people actually seem to have their money where their mouth is; odd that guys with such extreme notions of economics seem to be the only ones not just competently handling their finances, but finessing them such that, they’re right, they’re first tier competitive. I never would have believed six months ago that their strength going into November would be money, but there you have it. They’ve already raised a million dollars since the beginning of the month, and I would expect they get about a million every two weeks from now until election day. Running such a sound organization, and with so much room to expand (they are only just now actually spending money on advertising), that money, dollar to dollar, can go a lot further than, say, Mitt Romney’s. In other words, not only are they more financially sound, but that money has a lot more earning potential, and they stretch their budget a lot farther, than even the top two campaigns.

Now, Ron’s still only getting 5% nationally, but….it’s getting easier to see him as a legitimate contender. It’s essentially him against 8 opponents who will all be more or less splitting the same vote. He’s got the money to hang with any of them (even Rudy Giuliani only has 11 million on hand, which is nice, but certainly doesn’t leave the rest in the dust). He’s got an organization that can do two things at once: prepare strong showings in early states, but also lay the groundwork, should those strong showings come, for a national campaign that lasts right until the convention (if the field does parse down to Rudy, Thompson, and Paul relatively quickly (I think it might), he can not just be competitive, but stay competitive (versus, say, Huckabee, or McCain)).

It remains to be seen if Dr. Paul can get votes (though, as was pointed out in the Q&A at the press conference, when actual Republicans have actually voted in this race so far (straw polls), Dr. Paul is the leader in votes cast), but it’s starting to get easier and easier to be optimistic about the chances of this campaign. At the very least we can say this: they’re in a position to be competitive. Give them that much.