Yesterday at midnight was the Q3 fundraising deadline for the Illinois race for U.S. Senate. Over the next 15 days, we will see where the various contenders are in the quest for campaign cash.
Congressman Mark Kirk has predicted that this will be a $20 million ante to carry the GOP candidate through the general election. Who can raise that kind of cash, besides Kirk? Well, the Q3 reports will tell us if anyone else even has a chance.
Oh, by the way, "commitments" don't count. They don't show up on the balance sheet, and if your supposed 'supporters' have given you nothing but a promise, not only is it unclear if that cash will ever truly materialize, you can't spend a promise today on advertising, materials, campaign salaries, etc.
Most likely, the successful candidates will trumpet their results well in advance of the October 15th disclosure deadline, so I am waiting with great interest to see how the GOP contenders (as well as the Democratic candidates, for that matter) did.
UPDATED: Cap Fax Blog is reporting that Da Coach has endorsed Pat Hughes. Well, if Mike Ditka sends a few million dollars along with the endorsement, it would help Hughes catch up in the fundraising department, but somehow I doubt that's going to happen.
UPDATED x2: TA hears that GOP 10th Congressional District candidate Bob Dold was very pleased with his fundraising numbers for Q3, having blown past several internal benchmarks that the campaign increased over the course of the quarter. We'll have actual numbers for you as soon as they are released. (TA's note: someone questioned in comments if this post meant that I'm 'for Dold'. TA has not yet picked a horse in the 10th CD race. TA's policy is that we will pick up newsworthy, generally positive tidbits about the GOP contenders, either from the street, news sources, or directly from the various campaigns if they want to send me stuff. Nothing I write should imply an endorsement of any GOP candidate unless I expressly say so. Thanks.)
UPDATED x3: Cap Fax Blog noted the first of many official fundraising announcements to come in IL-10, this one from Dem Julie Hamos for $545,000. Let's see if she cleaned Dan Seals' clock.
UPDATED x4 8:00 a.m. 10/2/09: Looks like Pat Hughes' announcement of da coach's endorsement didn't get much traction given that Chicago is obsessively focused with the Olympic announcement today -- or is it because no one really cared? One might suggest that Ditka is a bit overexposed with restaurants, pork chop sauce, wine and his own lingerie football team (hey, how's that for promoting 'conservative' values???).
I didn't see any evening news coverage last night (let me know if I missed it), and only a few short stories (here, here) in the MSM are showing up. I agree with Marathon Pundit that it was a very odd choice of a day to make such an announcement, especially since the real value in paring Ditka's name with Hughes is not because Ditka is going to influence anyone's vote for U.S. Senate -- it's simply for the name recognition that Hughes is desperate to establish and can't afford to get any other way. Is this another a sign of Hughes' lack of political experience? If you don't have any political experience, as Hughes does not, you're going to contend it's not necessary, but it shows up in the execution of a campaign in rookie moves like this.
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13 comments:
Mark will blow pat hughes out-I'm expecting between 2-3 million minimum from mark, after which the goal for mark between now and february 3 will be one thing, run the clock out.
in the 10th, I seriously doubt cadigan and dold will have much money, it doesn't matter for green because he's loaded and coulson will do very well because the chicago machine loves its playthings like her.
FOKLAES
What's your prediction on Hughes, FOKLAES? I am guessing under $300K, which for a senate race is tuppence.
The right-wingers that are Hughes' meat and potatoes are notorious for making big promises but being extremely tight-fisted.
As I said, you can't spend a promise, which is most of what Hughes has at this point.
TA,
if you took away right wing blogs, the only guy that would know this dude was running is him.
Lee Goodman hauled in about 86k total from the trotskyites in northbrook in 2004, that sounds about right.
I havent heard about any fundraisers for him and for reference, dan proft, a candidate for governor who has been all over the state hauled in only 17k for the first half of the year.
i doubt this guy has the resources to even get on the ballot.
the big issue is the 10th. on the dem side if pup gets a low number we know he's done. if he does well, hamos is going to have to get the machine up here to work in overdrive to get her the votes, though they are probably already sworn to coulson.
FOKLAES
TA-
Why would a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate want to share an endorsement with Gov. Quinn? That's right, Quinn, who was endorsed by SEIU was also endorsed by Mike Ditka.
http://www.youtube.com/user/QuinnForIllinois#play/user/4554FD3A4709A0C5/3/1gjMbXYPLJ0
when will the Q3 numbers be up? is Team America supporting Dold for the 10th?
Mike Ditka endorsed Gov. Pat Quinn (D). Hughes doesn't even vote.
dold whispered sweet somethings into team america's ear because team america is a force on the scene that can't be stopped.
Team America needs to now learn that unless he gets an internal memo from dold dated last july with a number suggesting numbers, dolds figure could be anything above zero and be called a big win.
It's called setting expectations.
Dold should have put out a letter to supporters on his facebook page, which by the way is killing coulson and cadigan, suggesting that because coulson is a machine candidate, green is a millionaire and cadigan has a rolodex with every major porter donor, if dold is even in their hemisphere it is a major win for his campaign.
also none of these candidates is tweeting, major fail. We're not in 1988 fellas.
the big FOKLAES
according to cap fax, hamos raised 545k. it's weak but enough for her to get out and destroy dan. great news!
she's who we want. you can trash her every day every vote every tax hike every blago trial day.
FOKLAES
FOKLAES- Don't worry about me, I haven't been snookered by Dold or anyone else. And I don't necessarily print everything I know. But clearly you can read the story just as I wrote; Dold is pleased, but what yardstick he is using to measure himself against will only become apparent when he reveals his numbers.
it's really interesting if you look at the money raised. for all the talk of downstate, there's more campaign cash in winnetka than there is half the downstate districts, so anything is possible. dold's hit on coulson shows he's getting his ellen in gear.
we want hamos, really badly, and the really old-she's 62 so if she wins she'll probably quit the first time we get a solid wind in 2012 or 2014- gizzard came through big this time. Hopefully she got all dems to quit on pup and his volunteer beekeeping zombies superstar Max Tempkin.
FOKLAES
Correction: Dold IS tweeting, for the record.
story in politico today about steve schmidt working for Mark. I have a lot of friends that worked with schmidt on bush cheney and mccain's campaign and the guy is an animal who knows how to win blue states-he got the governator elected in california in 2006, an awful year for us.
Great call by Mark and certainly better than the amateur operation they've been running p.r. wise in the early going.
FOKLAES
Proper comparison of candidates' fundraising is: how much of the money is from third-parties rather than self-financing; and when did the candidate start. Hamos began raising $ back in July, I think, way ahead of everyone else. Have to wait until October 15 to see details and compare along these lines.
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