The campaign finance reports for came out today. I'm so glad they're online now. Makes the data super fast to analyze.
I was here in the office, so I real quick glanced through the Martin/Carnahan race. Russ outraised Ed Martin, but in a very strange way. The first thing you notice is that Martin beat Carnahan in the individual contributions list. That's a strong sign of support in an anti-incumbent year. Russ has something like 65% of his contributions from PACs (much higher than the total of Roy Blunt, which led the Post Dispatch to report on Blunt's total), but the stranger thing is how much money came in the last three days of the reporting period.
$31,550 dollars came into Russ Carnahan from individual contributions from December 29-31, 2009 That's a ton of dough on the last three days, and either he was burning up the phones, or he was sending bike messengers out in the bitter cold.
$43,100 came into his campaign from PAC contributions in the last three days from December 29-31. That too is a lot of dough, and it makes the story curiouser. It also shows how desperate he was to get ahead.
$74,650 came in the last three days of the quarter, almost a third of his total. Was it his birthday? Did he throw a party and not tell anyone? Was he looking at his numbers and realizing he couldn't afford to get beat in fundraising twice in a row?
I'll tell you this. When you're asking for money, it doesn't always come in on time, but it has to be received by the 31st to count in this quarter. A great example is the St Louisans for Better Government PAC, which gave $2500 to Russ back on August 5th. Russ reported it on August 12th. It took a week to get to him and get deposited. How did he raise so much money so fast? That should be fun to follow up with and compare. I've got a group of moms dying to get at those numbers. I hope they all match up. It's a really bad idea to count pledges or checks that didn't arrive on the quarter before. Goes against the whole transparency and honest government ethic. But let's talk about that in three months. No matter what his reports, the next quarter is going to be tougher to raise money for ol' Rubberstamp. He can't go to the well too many times before his donors start wondering why he's always in a panic come the last day.
Maybe it's all the people who wanted to write it off their taxes in 2009.
Yeah, I know political contributions are not deductible. But look at the tax knowledge at the top of the party and wonder if that trickles down.
Posted by: Brian J. | 02/01/2010 at 06:33 AM
When Scott Brown started getting contributions by the bucket load Martha Coakley went to DC to get money from the lobbyist and special interest groups. That is the Democrat playbook.
Ed Martin has conducted over a hundred ask ED mini Town Halls. He has pledged that he will address any group of 20 or more.
www.edmartinforcongress.com
Posted by: Tom63010 | 02/01/2010 at 12:27 PM