The Associated Press reports that yesterday’s campaign finance reporting indicates that Hamilton County David Pepper’s healthy fundraising indicates that his race is appears to be headed towards victory:
Auditor candidate David Pepper, a Cincinnati Democrat, is muscling out his opponents in the money race as well. The son of a former Procter & Gamble chief executive has $605,000 in the bank, 20 times that of either of his Republican opponents: former county prosecutor David Yost and state Rep. Seth Morgan.
Yost only last week moved into the auditor’s race from the attorney general’s race, leaving former U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine unopposed against Cordray.
Had Taylor stayed in the race, Pepper would only have a 2:1 cash-on-hand advantage, instead of the 20:1 he has.
Thanks, Kasich!
Share on Facebook
From the Columbus Dispatch.
LetOhioVote.org filed their first campaign finance report, but it’s hardly illuminating:
LetOhioVote.org, which is led by three conservative activists, reported that it has raised nearly $1.6 million. All of that money came from a political nonprofit that specializes in polling called New Models, based in a suburban Washington office building.
LetOhioVote.org’s spokesman, Carlo LoParo, said he doesn’t know the ultimate source of the group’s money.
In other words, New Models is being used as a proxy donor to hide the real source of the Blackwell alumni revenge society’s actual money. Nothing like being an organization that has questionable out-of-state finances that cannot claim any support from within the State.
This kind of intentional campaign finance skirting needs to be outlawed. For once, I agree with Jon Husted.
Share on Facebook
Governor Strickland’s re-election campaign just released their numbers: around $6.2 million cash-on-hand (that’s over 50% more than what Kasich reported.)
This is an obscene amount of money on both sides. Seriously. In 2006, neither Strickland nor Blackwell even had over half a million on hand. Governor Strickland’s campaign actually has roughly half on hand of what his 2006 campaign spent during the entire race last cycle.
It’s the most money any candidate for Governor, let alone an incumbent, has ever reported in Ohio history.
But that’s not the only record Strickland’s campaign broke:
“Not only does Strickland’s campaign have more cash on hand than any Ohio governor in history at this point in the campaign, but he also has more than any other Democratic governor up for re-election in the nation,” Strickland for Governor campaign manager Aaron Pickrell said.
…
“We are thrilled with the support that Ohioans have shown for Governor Strickland and his leadership during these tough economic times,” Strickland for Governor campaign manager Aaron Pickrell said.
“They understand that he has made the right investments to ensure that our state emerges from this global economic recession stronger than ever and know that we simply cannot afford to bring back the failed trickle-down economic policies that benefited Wall Street at the expense of Ohio. In the coming months, we look forward to discussing Governor Strickland’s record and his plans to ensure that our economy works for all Ohio families.”
Meanwhile, Chris Redfern is boasting that both the Ohio House Democratic Caucus Fund and ODP are reporting record breaking fundraising results as well. ‘Fern also mentions David Pepper’s fundraising advantage, but given his lack of an opponent… 
Earlier this week, I participated in a bloggers conference call with the Democratic Governors Association. They reported that they had over $17 million on hand, the most of ANY Democratic political committee organization, and twelve times more than what the group had to work with in 2006.
It’s going to look like a presidential election year on your television, folks. Better just get ready for it. I bet TiVo sales will skyrocket.
Share on Facebook
In response to Kasich-Taylor announcing that they were reporting they have $4 million on hand, Strickland-Brown Communication Director Lis Smith issued the following statement:
“While we are still compiling our fundraising report, Governor Strickland will have more cash on hand than any incumbent Governor in Ohio history at this point in the campaign. Given Congressman Kasich’s 20 years in Washington, brief presidential campaign, and 7 years on Wall Street, we’re frankly surprised that he didn’t raise more.”
So what does that mean? Well, according to the Secretary of State’s office, if Ms. Smith’s statement is true, that means that Governor Strickland’s campaign has MORE THAN $5.7 MILLION on hand.
I don’t have any sources, but I’ve got to believe that it’s around $6 million.
Let’s remember that unlike Kasich, Governor Strickland has a day job, and the reporting period constituted almost the entire budget debate. Yet, Ted Strickland is still breaking fundraising records. Kasich pulled out Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. He went all over the nation raising every penny he could just so he could talk about his record-breaking fundraising haul… and he’s still getting beat.
Remember, even Kasich always believed that his Wall Street connections would keep him well-funded in any race:
“In 2008, Mr. Kasich thinks he will be tanned, rested and ready, and having done his time on Wall Street-having finally rubbed up close against all those big-money guys-he just might be able to scrape together enough cash to make a meaningful run at it. “If I can fix my fund-raising problems, I will run again,” he says.”
Of course, in that same interview, Kasich also said:
“I think President Bush is doing a fine job.”
.jpg)
At this point in 2005, Ted Strickland only had a $700k cash-on-hand advantage to Ken Blackwell. Wow, indeed, Keeling.
Share on Facebook
John H. McConnell died today.
John’s life is really the classic American story: son of a steel worker, joined the navy, went to college on the G.I. Bill, had a good idea, started a company, got rich and turned into a Republican.
He founded Worthington Industries, help start the Columbus Clippers and the Blue Jackets and, since 1990, has contributed over half-a-million dollars to Ohio’s GOP candidates.
Including…
| George Voinovich |
56,000 |
| Betty Montgomery |
40,250 |
| Ken Blackwell |
35,750 |
| Thomas J. Moyer |
31,000 |
| Mary Taylor |
30,000 |
| Greg Hartmann |
20,000 |
| Jon Husted |
17,500 |
| Jim Petro |
11,250 |
| Steve Stivers |
11,000 |
etc. etc.
That’s A LOT of money!
He’s also given money to a lot of other, less-evil causes – like $7.5 million to help develop the Heart Hospital at Riverside.
He’ll certainly be missed by a lot of people – but most importantly by Ohio’s GOP fundraisers.
Share on Facebook
I was out of commission yesterday, and most of the good stuff was already picked up in the rest of the Ohio ’sphere, including this nugget, which is way too important for a Central Ohio blog to neglect to mention.
Bill Todd got 22% of his current funds for his Mayoral campaign from one David Brennan. You remember David Brennan, right? You should – we’ve talked about him quite a bit.
In case you are too lazy to look it up, Brennan is the Chairman of White Hat, the Akron-based charter school company. And Brennan is a good friend to Republicans, splashing out lots of cash. Little wonder he likes Bill Todd; Todd wants to institute charter schools in Columbus under the laughable assertion that it’s about providing “choice” to parents. These initiatives aren’t about choice – they are about privatizing education and turning into a profit-based industry, rather than a child-centric one, and lining the pockets of contributors like David Brennan.
Share on Facebook
I received another email from the Franklin County folks that provides a little more detail than the previous one- so I thought I’d share…
Primary finance reports are not required if the candidate’s name does not appear on the primary ballot.
Simi Annual finance reports are not required if the candidate is required to file a post general report for that year.
Columbus City Charter requires all candidates to file a finance report (electronically) to this office no later than five days before the general election –
The first report that will be required for the Columbus Mayorial Election will probably be the pre-general report – due Oct. 25, 2007.
Please be aware that those finance filings will be posted to our web site at close of business that date.
So it sounds like the data will be available online about a week and a half before election day- which certainly doesn’t leave us a lot of time for analysis before people head to the polls.
Share on Facebook
After Strickland’s State of the State speech, ONN’s crack political reporters were on the scene at the State House to find out what people like State Senator Kevin Coughlin thought of the speech.
Not suprisingly, Mr. Coughlin hated the school voucher cut and the proposal to eliminate for-profit schools- what he calls the ‘proposal to eliminate school choice’.
He claims to be puzzled by the choice since most of the people who benefit from the vouchers are “inner city … african american families” aka: Strickland’s “own constituencies”. (what is he saying? Blacks only vote for Democrats?) Which, of course, is not true- plenty of rich families abuse the voucher system to get the state to pay for their own children’s education at private schools.
But we shouldn’t be suprised by his opinion. Not at all.
The FACT is: Kevin Coughlin gets TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars in campaign contributions from the owners of private school companies (e.g. David Brennan)!
Share on Facebook
Lessig 08
by Brian on February 20, 2008 · Comments
Lots of videos, I know, but they’re just too good not to share. Lawrence Lessig outlines two new movements in America; Change Congress and Lessig for CA-12… maybe. This really is a fantastic video.
{ 0 comments }