Winning An Election: Fat Wallet Required?
The days of putting up a few signs and hoping to win a local election are history. Ask candidates and campaign experts what it takes to win and you will hear: polling surveys, consultants, mailers, TV/radio ads, websites, blogs, interns, telephone banks, neighborhood cookouts, signs, billboards, etc. All of this requiring money, money, money…….and lots of it!
Be prepared to shell out $175,000-$250,000 to run for state representative, $75,000-$125,000 for county commissioner, and even $30,000-$50,000 for county school board or some of the city offices. Staggering and growing financial requirements.
Is running for office getting beyond the means of the average candidate? There are probably some local citizens who could afford to run a campaign without using the money of others. However, most of those individuals aren’t even interested in holding elected office. The average Joe or Sally wanting to run must come up with some big bucks, especially if they are new to politics and running against a well-known incumbent.
So we want to hear from you:
How is the increased importance of fundraising changing Marion County politics?
posted by Blog Master @ 12:06 AM
32 Comments:
All the big money has to be a big influence to how politicians make decisions. I don't think there is any solution, politics costs money and those who have it win and those who don't lose.
Don
(OTOW)
Ross Perot started this whole fund raising situation!!
Spending $75,000 to $100,000 to get elected as a rinky dink County Commissioner, that's ridiculous and I don't believe it!
When you have some time to kill, go to your computer search engine and type in “winning political campaigns and fundraising”. Amazing how many sources you get.
Ok Anonymous, you think $75,000 to $100,000 to get elected to a rinky dink office is ridiculous. Consider this and then tell me what you think:
1. There are just shy of 200,000 registered voters in MC. Unfortunately, I left my stats at the office, but close enuf for govt work, it is about 195,000. There are mopre than 100,000 households.
2. The Star Banner reaches 50,000 give or take a few thousand households. Open rate for the OSB is in excess of $30.00 a column inch . . . three colums by ten inches, 30 column inches, times $30 an inch and you have a #1,000 bill quickly.
3. South Marion Citizen gets another 10,000 or so, perhaps some overlap. Mirror publicans another 25,000, and the Village Sun hits maybe 120,000 in South Marion County.
4. Last study I saw had Channel 2 in first place, but obviously a lot of people watch Channel 20. Hit the most watched programs and you can spend $25,000 without even trying.
5. Cable shows reach a tremendous amount of people. Cable advertising is one of the best buys you can make, but to cover all the various cable suppliers and there is another $15,000 to $20,000.
6. Billboards are probably over sold, but are valuable. Add about $7,500 to $15,000 for two months of a half dozen signs.
7. Direct Mail gets into homes. May be thrown in the trash unread, but it gets to the home. Sorting those 195,000 voters into dems and reps and you are down to about 80,000 or so each, and then figure out how often they care enough to vote, and do a couiple of mailings and you have another $20,000 for the primary and again for the general election, and two mailings is a minimum for a serious candidate.
8. There will be 10,000 to 15,000 people vote absentee or early. We can reach the absentee voters in time for them to get some info before they vote, but there is no way short of early advertising to reach the early voters. So you can spend another $5,000 to $10,000 chasing after these voters.
$80,000 to $100,000 for a county commission seat? It is a lot of money, but so you spend $40,000 and lose -- that would accomplish a lot, wouldn't it.
I have watched it go from the days my old mentor County Commissioner Tommy Tomnlinson win in 1960 spending less than $100.00 other than to qualify -- he printed 500 cards and when you had read both sides, he would ask for it back unless you promised to give it to a friend. That, folks, was a conservative!
Most money doesn't always win. Look at Bill Clinton when he beat George H.W. Bush, who had the money. It muts have been Clinton's "core values" that America liked.
--pwf
Sorry .. . that is Tommy Tomlinson
Better believe it on campaigns costing close to a hundred thousand dollars! Just ask Jim Payton or Charlie Stone.
I can vouch for the increasing costs of running a campaign. I speak from experience.
If you are who I think you are, you know something about spending campaign money.
I know for sure, the local Democrats are at a disadvantage when it comes to fundraising. There are Republicans who support/vote for Democrats, but don't want their name to appear on a contributor list.
Large amounts of developer money being pumped into campaigns, that's what's changing politics in Marion County. They've got the money and politicians need it to survive.
It takes a lot of work for a candidate to raise $100,000. If they could get $100 each from 1000 people, they are in business. However, with a success rate of only about 5% of the people they contact contributing, a candidate will need to contact 20,000 people to raise the $100,000! Imagine how much time is spent on begging for money.
Veteran local candidates tell me they spend about 25%-30% of their campaign time raising money. What a waste, when they should be out telling people their solutions to local government problems.
Boy, July 4th sure does bring out the politicians. I have seen more today than I ever have. Even some I didn't know were in office! Went to two events and they were covered with political types.
Fundraising is the big issue keeping local Democrats from making any progress. Just too many Democrats who don't want to let go of money. Even the poor Republicans get involved in giving money to candidates.
It's easy to get folks excited about supporting a candidate, financially or otherwise, when the candidate actually has ideas on how to improve government and shares core convictions.
The reason that local Democrats are financially impotent is because they don't have any worthwhile ideas and they don't share the mainstream values of most Marion County voters.
Can you get excited about supporting candidates who don't have ideas, don't have a plan, and seem to only be capable of name-calling and whining?
Republicans, Independents, and thoughtful Democrats get involved in financially supporting those candidates/incumbents who have a proven track record of success and unwavering convictions, even if they don't always agree with them.
These are some simple observations from a simple person.
Pretty astute, Mallet, for a simple person. Sums it up very good.
It’s a real shame Marion County political campaigns cost so much, because most of the politicians elected sure aren’t worth it. What happened to waste not, want not? This time around how about some value for the dollar?
BAXLEY A FISCAL CONSERVATIVE. DOESN'T LOOK LIKE ONE TO ME!!!
$12,500 for chip morris to develop dannie a website? guess that will buy him a lot of free air time on wsky in the afternoon. and $3,000 a month for a nice young guy to follow him around all the time? Tim Harding has found a sugar daddy with this one. but dennis is "right" with his base on most of the issues except a nut like cavanaugh who finds a conspiracy behind every tree.
Don’t be so critical of Mr. Baxley. Give him some credit for providing employment opportunities for at least one young family in our community. Only catch is his contributors are paying for this, not him. At least Mr. Harding has income and support for his family at the expense of political campaign funds. Great work, if you can get it!
Money will always be tied to politics, and that's not a bad thing. If you can't convince someone you're worth investing in, you're not a serious candidate. Sometimes the cold hard truth is painful, but that's the way it is. Funny how many people are so popular with everyone but can't convince any of them to put their money where their mouth is!
Here is a good principle to follow concerning contributions to politicians. If any candidate is spending more than 30% of the contributions they received on consultants and or paid campaign staff, ask them to return to you 50% of the amount you contributed. Better yet never contribute to their campaign again until they can assure you that administrative expenses are back in line. Some people tell me that 10% of contributions is the better figure for admin. expenses. Not sure that is at all reasonable in this day and age. Asking for your contribution back will sure get the candidates attention!
Noticed that Baxley is paying rent to his own company out of campaign funds. Guess that is legal, but not sure it's too smart.
Saw this on another blog.
"Special Interest": someone who contributes to a political candidate you've decided you're not going to vote for.
Walker for Florida says "There's been talk in Tallahassee of extending legislative term limits from 8 to 12 years. Sounds crazy to me and to just about everyone else, I'm sure (Wasn't that part of the Contract with America?). "
Having been involved with that term limits fight, I have changed my mind, and so have many others. By limiting terms we have eliminated the institutional knowledge (sort of like the Star Banner, where there is no one who knows what happened yesterday and therfore, can not write in complete context).
To solve the problems, since term limits has not worked, I would do two things:
First, I would eliminate all pensions for politicians -- school board, county commission, judge, sheriff (sorry Ed) legislature, Governor, Congress, Senator, whomever and whatever. This would allow people to do as Cliff Stearns said 16 years ago, "I am not a professional politician. I want to go to Washington and sreve as your citizen congressman for three or four terms, come home and run my businesses." (If you doubt he said it, check the Star Banner archives, or ask anyone at the Ocala Kiwanis Club when he and Jon Mills debated.)
When they could no longer afford to serve, they would come home and go back to the private sector.
Second, I would term limit STAFF! Now that is where the problem is. Staff actually runs Washington and Tallahassee. Florida lawmakers used to serve 60 days every two years (We then suggested they serve two days every sixty years!) Now, they are truly full time and they have not only full time staff locally, but the committee staff members are the people with the real power, and they move from one scommittee to another, building on that pension.
So, Mr. Walker, you have some good ideas. Take these and run with them. They won't win an election, but they will make for some good applause as you speak.
--pwf
Walker for Florida wants to know what "institutional knowledge" means.
To me it means knowing what has come before us, and one of the problems the city of Ocala now faces is the institutional knowledge and "been there, done that" perspective of Mike Finn and Gerald Ergle is gone. The city needs, and the legislature needs someone other than staff to understand perspective and the ramifications of proposals.
I know you can not limit staff, but when you have term limits on lawmakers, I NOW understand you give more importance to staff. I didn't realize the mistake when we fought for term limits. I now have institutional knowledge that term limits don't work.
With term limits you have 100 percent turnover every eight years, and I suspect the actual turnover is closer to 50 percent every two years rather than 25.
I tried to take away pensions for school board members return the setting of constitutional officers salaries back to the counties, and had a supervisor of elections from a small county up north offer to whip my ... if I messed with his salary. Since staff and the constitutional officers control that committee of the legislature, you can understand I got no where. Oh well . . .
--pwf
Never thought I'd say this, but I agree with Walker and pwf!
I just got a nice piece of campaign literature from Baxley. Isn't it strange it is paid for by the taxpayers and is coming out in such a nice format during election time? Ah, the power of incumbency!
This is Walker’s kind of guy...mine too!
Max Linn of St. Petersburg, an advocate of eight-year term limits for politicians, plans to join the 2006 race for governor Thursday as a Reform Party candidate. Linn is president of Florida Citizens for Term Limits, and an announcement says his key advisers will be Doug Friedline, who spearheaded Jesse Ventura's upset win as governor of Minnesota, and Russell Verney, who ran Ross Perot's presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996.
"There's an obvious leadership vacuum in Tallahassee," Linn says. He says his drive to run for governor stems partly from widespread voter opposition to a move by legislators in 2005 to stretch term limits from eight to 12 years. Lawmakers reversed themselves this past spring and junked the idea, leaving the "Eight is Enough" law in place.
If elected governor, Linn says, he'll accept no salary.
Baxley has a great web site. Walker must be jealous that his site doesn't match up. I don't blame him.
Baxley should have a great website considering how much he paid for it.
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