Finance Reports are Out
The campaign finance numbers are out and David Wissing at The Hedgehog Report has a series of great posts on the numbers that affect
1) Politics1 – This is where I start all my blog hunting. It is one of the oldest blogs dating back to that ancient time of 1997. This is a link clicker/info seekers dream site. If you click the “State/Federal” link on the top you will get a US map you can click on and get a list of all congressional and statewide candidates in the state of your selection along with links to their websites, the states filing deadlines and primary schedules, links to most major and a number of minor local news sources, and each states Secretary of States websites. If you click on the “News Links” link you get a page full of links to some great news/info/political resources.
2) Political Wire – The best rundown of political news you can find.
3) Josh Marshall – This is a great investigative journalism blog that is the best source for covering all the scandals going on in DC including the Abramoff and Duke Cunningham scandals.
4) DailyKos – This is the biggest and best Democratic blog with a daily readership of about a half million.
5) RedState – The Republican version of DailyKos.
6) Andrew Sullivan – An independent minded Republican
7) Wonkette – The queen of DC snark
There are plenty of others like AmericaBlog, FireDogLake, and FreeRepublic, so go check them out for yourself and feel free to give a shout out to your favorite blogs in the comments section below or share what you think of some of the blogs that are mentioned above.
Now onto the campaign finance numbers:
The one thing I would add is that though money is very important for statewide (and Franchot’s money in the comptrollers race really stands out to me) or even big district races at a local level a candidate without much money can knock on enough doors to win a race through person to person contact without needing much money. For example, I keep hearing reports that Nina Basu’s energy and passion are really impressing people she is meeting as she is campaigning and though quite honestly she is fighting an uphill battle without much money, it will be very interesting to watch to see how many people respond to that energy and her ideas and see if she can pull off an underdog upset. What are you hearing from or about candidates in your part of the county?
posted by Evan | 12:09 AM
3 Comments:
I share your optimism on candidates with very little money. However, 1) It is virtually impossible to touch 4-6 thousand people in 2 months and 2) if you are that impressive, why haven't more people donated. Even if the money total was low, the donor total would be high if you have any chance of winning. Being elected is a numbers game and not merely how well you come off to a few people.
True, we will have to see what happens. It is clearly better to have money and time. I think there is no doubt that Nina is the underdog in the 13th district race. Will her energy and feisty door to door neighbor to neighbor campaigning be enough to pull her over the top in a competitive 5 way race for three positions? We will know on September 12th. I wonder how many people may be so pissed of by the four way back and forth between the slate and Neil to say that they will just single shoot Nina and let the rest of the ticket sort itself out. I have heard some of that with people saying that any of the five would be good on the ballot in November, but they like Nina's energy and they are sick of the rest of the back and forth about the slate and they are just going to vote for Nina and let the rest sort itself out.
I think, in the end, most people do not pay attention until election week.
Even then, many only focus on the top of the ticket. Unknowns lower on the ballot, in the real world, do not fare well in elections.
As utopian as the best person winning is, it's not reality unless the best person is also a formidable candidate. Money and name recognition are keys to that. It's going to be one of the four.
That said, if Nina stays involved, she could be the top dog in 4 or 8 years. Not bad for someone just knocking on 30-years old.
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