The slide in the market hurts a lot of families.  Not that anyone is really thinking about it, but does the slide hurt campaigns, too?  For those campaigns that invest their funds in various mutual funds, huge losses can hurt.  Here’s one report from 2004 involving the Frist campaign’s investment strategy.

A campaign fund controlled by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has lost almost $460,000 in stock market investments since 2000 and now does not have enough to cover a sizable bank loan, according to federal election records and the manager of the Frist account.

The heaviest losses, totaling more than $500,000, occurred in a stock index fund in 2001 and 2002, years when the securities markets suffered a major downturn. But the Frist campaign account lost an additional $32,050 in July and August, a setback that was only partially offset by a gain of $11,472 in September, according to Linus Castignani, treasurer of “Frist 2000,” which was created to finance the senator’s successful campaign for a second six-year term in 2000.