Tom Vilsack's abrupt departure from the presidential race Friday underscores the indispensable role of money in the contest, as well as an attention gap between voters and political insiders.
Less than three months after becoming the first major Democratic candidate to formally announce his bid, Vilsack reluctantly made his exit at a Des Moines news conference.
"It is money and only money that is the reason we are leaving," the former Iowa governor said. He had begun mulling a pullout several days before making his final decision Thursday, in the face of a severe cash crunch.
"I came up against something for the time in my life that hard work and effort couldn't overcome," Vilsack said. "I just couldn't work any harder, couldn't give it enough."
His withdrawal leaves a Democratic field dominated by Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois -- and, to a lesser degree, former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. Several other candidates are fighting, as Vilsack did, to elbow their way into that top tier.
"In a normal year, a successful governor -- no less from Iowa, the first voting state -- would be an ideal candidate," said Thomas Schaller, a University of Maryland expert on the presidential nominating process. "But this is a cycle where you have these two titans in Obama and Clinton, and they're sucking all the oxygen and the majority of money out of the race before it's even begun."
Vilsack's announcement came on the same day a new national poll showed that about three in 10 Democrats were paying attention to the presidential race, and fewer than half volunteered a candidate they might support. The survey showed Clinton and Obama running far ahead of the party pack.
"Despite the accelerated campaign, it's not something that's really engaging the public to any great extent," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, which conducted the poll.
But at this stage of the contest the candidates are playing to a much narrower audience -- courting key activists and donors. It was in the latter category in particular that Vilsack was lagging far behind. He reported raising $1.1 million between his November campaign launch and the end of the year -- less than Obama raised in a single night this week in Beverly Hills.
