Well, maybe Congressman Mark Kirk is a fan of classic movies, because he certainly gave no breaks to Dem challenger Dan Seals this afternoon, when Seals attempted to gain some needed momentum and a big press pop by announcing his Second Quarter fundraising results.Seals waited until late in the afternoon, and then let fly what he must have been sure would be a hugely devastating Q2 fundraising total: $635,000. In fact, over at Progress Illinois, they asked (before Kirk's numbers were released a short time later), "Could it be that many 10th Congressional District voters are starting to sour on GOP Rep. Mark Kirk...?" Yes sir, you could imagine the fist bumps going on at the Aquarium (or whatever they call the Seals headquarters) in a self-congratulatory frenzy. Seals clearly hoped that his number would be extremely impressive, and he would have at least one day of being "the big show" in terms of congressional fundraising news tomorrow.
Well, $635,000 is certainly nothing to sneeze at. But, this game is all relative, folks. And before the Dan Fans got too crazy over themselves, Team Kirk immediately released Kirk's Q2 fundraising total and took all of the wind out of the S.S. Seals.
In a masterstroke of timing, Kirk's camp reported just after Seals put out his numbers that Kirk RAISED OVER $900,000 in Q2!!! For you math-challenged folks (which includes me, I had my seven-year-old work out the math for me), that means that Kirk outraised Seals by over 40%. As commentor DCEyes has already pointed out, this is in a quarter in which Kirk more or less fundraised on his own strength as a candidate, based on his own accomplishments, while Seals brought in all the help he could from Illinois and across the nation, including Michelle Obama, as well as Hoyer (D-MD), Emmanuel (D-IL), Wasserman (D-FL), Durbin (D-IL) and Schakowski (D-IL).
With a fundraising pace that Politico.com labeled "torrid", Kirk is well-positioned to defend his office once more against Seals, whom Kirk beat by 7 points in 2006. In terms of cash-on-hand, Kirk has more than double Seals' bank account, with $2.85 million in the bank, compared to Seals' $1.17 million, according to the Chicago Tribune. Totals for the 2008 election cycle, tellingly, are $3.87 million for Kirk, compared to $2.1 million for Seals.
"I am humbled by the groundswell of grassroots support my campaign received last quarter," Congressman Kirk said. "I am working hard to enact new energy policies that reduce gas prices and get our economy back on track, provide health care access to all Americans, and keep our kids safe from guns, gangs and online predators." Here's the official Kirk press release.
Sorry, Dan, no break for you today. If you've gotten the idea that Mark Kirk is not going to be caught offguard by you again, maybe you are trainable, to some small degree.
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6 comments:
Can't wait to see the report - Bet Dan has significant amounts of money coming from Chicago and Evanston zip codes. I'd put the over/under at 30%.
Pile on Mr. Kirk!
And TA, when you look at all those supposed high-powered big names who came out here to help The Pup it's understandable how he got up to $635 or whatever he raised. Our Congressman didn't have any outside help, he did this as he always does, from his message, from his hard work and from his impressive and very large base of constituent support. I know of two events a few weeks ago where ALL of the hosts were DEMS who have always stood squarely with Mark Kirk. Over $100,000 was raised that day, all from people IN THIS DISTRICT who wanted to show their support for all that our Congressman does, not just for Israel, but on education, on the pro-choice agenda, on the environment, on Impact Aid for our schools. Sorry Dan, are you getting the picture?
You can feel how much momentum Kirk has on the ground. These fundraising numbers humiliated Seals.
The aquarium thing was good-very witty.
Mark will be able to outspend Dan 3-1, stay on the air from labor day through the end. This figure essentially ends any support dan was going to get from national democrats, they realize that they need to spend 2 million here just to be competitive, and could easily pick up seats in rural areas where ad time runs in the tens rather than hundreds of thousands of dollars.
PACS will also turn away from him particularly if Mark goes to seek leadership.
I think we’re getting a little too self-congratulatory here. Seals raised $635,000 and has $1.7 million in the bank. That’s a lot less than our Congressman, but to this observer, it is an impressive number.
I don’t think this will be enough to drive the national party away. Fortunately, Seals has a shovel for a mouth because each time he opens it, he buries himself a little deeper.
Anon 9:28, correction: Seals does NOT have 1.7 COH, he has $1.1 COH and that's a BIG difference. When you think that he had help from Michelle Obama, the top leaders from his party in DC he still came up 40% LESS than Congressman Kirk for the 3 month period just ended. I do, however, agree with you. Nobody can or should sit back and sit on our collective 'laurels'. Huge mistake.
Let's not underestimate what the DCCC will do for Seals. He, like Lauren Beth Gash does suffer from foot in mouth disease. He is clueless about the district, has no ideas whatsoever about how to address the real issues facing our nation and our world. But it's a very odd time in our country. We all need to keep our focus, volunteer to Get Out the Vote when it's needed, put up yard signs and just be there to help our Congressman win in November.
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