Cash on hand. It’s king right now. And in partisan races, the 3rd house is looking to see who still has the dinero to play in the final few days of the campaign. So I would argue the market drives ‘flubbing’ real COH totals.
Here is a fun game. Find a slate mailer disclosure. Find a candidate who shows a payment. Go back to the candidate’s website and see if the payment is there, or if it is accrued. Hint: in the name of showing more cash on hand there are quite a few that just ‘slipped through the cracks."
Game number 2. Find a candidate. Go back in past records and see how much their political consultant is getting paid every month. Then see if that consultant shows up in the most recent candidate disclosure for April and May. How odd… are consultants suddenly working for free, or did some more bills ‘slip through the cracks."
Bonus game. This requires you be local. Collect each mailing a given candidate mails out before the disclosure due date and pin them to the wall. Look up postage and/or mail house and/or consulting firm payments and see if they match.
Hey, I’ll be the first to admit mistakes are made. As pointed out in the earlier blogging by Barry Jantz one of Coronado’s client’s treasurers filed a number of her expenditures as ‘independent expenditures." I mostly use April Boling’s shop, and I think they’d be willing to say I’m sometimes slow to turn in bills and sometimes get a bit confused when millions of dollars are flowing. I spend a great deal of time – hours in a given day at this point of the campaign cycle – making sure the books are in order. And still, sometimes, I’m off. But it’s never intentional.
There are trends. When you can add in the bonus game those trends are amplified. That’s not cricket.
SAN DIEGO ELECTION UPDATES
66th AD: All I can say here is my in-laws run bees up there and they say Jeffries’ signs are legion. If I were betting on that race, I’d double down on old KJ. Good consultants, good managers, and a good candidate with the ability to raise money = probable win. Safe seat and KJ’s background rebuilding the Riverside GOP gives him leadership capability.
74th AD: Garrick is up on the radio with a heavy buy featuring State Senator Tom McClintock and his folks are now on the 3rd cycle of walking the district. Packard has less than 25k in the recent disclosure, but a boatload of signs. Polling puts Waldron in very low double digits. Disclosure: Coronado consults for Garrick.
77th AD: Either folks are being real smart here, or real stupid. I went through the disclosures today and saw a ton of wasted money from most candidates. Crap shoot: Beecham (Coronado), Anderson (Nygren), or Dale (local/Waino). I think the others are toast.
5th Supervisorial District: All right I’ll break my rule and make a prediction. Horn by a handful of points. Disclosure: I was Horn’s Land Use Policy Advisor years ago. He’s a friend now. And contrary to the local press I’ve actually spent hundreds of hours with Bill and I think he’s honest, if not sometimes too honest.
San Diego 2nd Council District: Democrat Kaeder, former Chairman of the San Diego Democrat Party, dropped out, but reform Republican Faulconer (Coronado) is running like he’s got a ham helmet on and its Easter at my house.
May 29th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Duane Dichiara is calling the 5th District Supervisor’s race 8 days out? Wow, for Bill Horn’s sake I hope you are right. Afterall there is no end in sight to the $41,000 in legal fees Horn has paid over the past 10 months. He needs a win to cover those kind of bills. By the way…what about Bilbray and Busby? Or is it too early to call that one?
Disclosure: I am Bruce Thompson’s son, and have spent tens of thousands of hours with him. And I echo the local press in saying he is not just honest, he is a hard working leader that cares about his constituency.
May 29th, 2006 at 12:00 am
The legal fees presumably include Bill Horn’s successful challenge
to Mr. Thompson’s ballot desig-nation, which a Judge did not find
especially …. accurate.
” County Supervisor Bill Horn’s opponent in the upcoming election must change his occupation listing on the ballot, a Superior Court judge ruled yesterday.
Instead of being listed as a “businessman/entrepreneur” on the June 6 ballot, Bruce Thompson will be called a “regional business administrator,” Judge Laura J. Birkmeyer ordered.
Horn sued Thompson over his decision to describe himself as a “businessman/entrepreneur”
on the ballot.
Thompson has been the Western Region administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration for FIVE YEARS. Before that, he was a state legislator.”
SD Union-Tribune 03/31/06
May 30th, 2006 at 12:00 am
$41,000 to change a ballot designation from “Businessman/Entrepreneur” to “Regional Bussiness Administrator.” And you call that a “successful challange?”
We wanted Regional Bussiness Administrator in the first place, but were told by the Registrar and Secretary of State’s office that we couldn’t use it. So I am glad Horn spent that money to allow us to use option #1.