Kerry Designates National Bake Sale Weekend

Hopes to Raise $100 Million with 100,000 Bake Sales

The Kerry for President Campaign has designated March 20-21 as national John Kerry Bake Sale Weekend. The campaign hopes to hold as many as 100,000 bake sales across the country in strip malls, parking lots, car washes, gas stations, convenience stores, schools, churches, parks, unemployment offices, prison visitation rooms and other gathering places.

Kerry finance strategists see the bake sale blitz as the most effective way to tap a grassroots source of funding and attempt to close the enormous gap between the Kerry campaign's miniscule war chest and the $100 million-plus that President Bush's re-election campaign has raised.

"The bake sale strategy is a matter of simple math," said one Kerry fundraising consultant. "Hold 100,000 bake sales that each net $1,000 and you raise $100 million in a weekend. That's still less than Bush has raised, but it goes a long way to dramatically closing the gap."

Taking a page from the campaign of former Vermont governor Howard Dean, the Kerry camp is focusing on using the Internet to create and motivate a grassroots bake sale cadre. A new web site www.BakeKerryNow.com is expected to be online in the next day or two.

The web site will feature the recipes for several of Kerry's favorite cookies, including the famed ketchup chocolate chip cookie. The cookies, which are flavored with Heinz ketchup, became famous after Kerry began handing them out at primary election campaign stops and Kate Snow of ABC News became ill when she ate too many during an interview with Kerry.

Organizing 100,000 bake sales means one bake sale for roughly every 2,800 Americans, a figure that translates into 7,100 bake sales in California, the country's most populous state, to 250 bake sales in North Dakota, one of the country's least populated states.

"It's doable," a Kerry political strategist said. "It's the kind of thing that speaks to every civic-minded person, to every person who goes to the unemployment office each week. Perhaps there's still no job for you, but at least you can buy some cookies or a nice loaf of date nut bread to take home to the family."

Grocery industry executives expressed enthusiasm for the project, predicting it could generate a one-time pop in gross sales for the industry in excess of $25 million. "That's not a lot in the broad scheme of supermarket gross revenues," said Elliot Weingarten, a spokesman for Mega Market Institute, a Washington lobbying group. "But the real pop will come for the walnut growers or chocolate chips people. You could see chocolate chip sales spike up nationally by $10 to $15 million dollars in a single day."
Weingarten said that the ketchup industry might also see a spike up in sales if Kerry's ketchup chocolate chip cookie catches on.

"I'm no expert on such things, but I've often wondered why politicians don't put more emphasis on food as the way to get votes," Weingarten said. "Kerry might be onto something here."

Though it insists there is no connection, the White House said Laura Bush, the president's wife, will publish next week her long awaited "Bush Family Dessert Delights" cookbook. The book, which will retail for $129.95, features Mrs. Bush's broccoli cake with chocolate icing.

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