Monday, October 25, 2010

FINALLY!

It took almost a month, but the newest quarterly reports on fund-raising has been discovered. This is something that I have been planning on writing about for over a month now. Lots of exciting information to talk about. Lots of exciting information to to share with the world and you. Stay tuned


There are a number of way to measure how strong a challenger is. One way is to simply look to see if that person has ever held an elected office. In the case of Mr. Rossi he has. Not only has he held an elected office but he has also ran twice, albeit it unsuccessfully, for a state wide office. This gives Mr. Rossi connections with donors, volunteers, the party establishment, and name recognition. All things considered Mr. Rossi is clearly a solid challenger for the incumbent, Sen. Murray. If we want to attempt to make this a little more simple and just measure one metric, a very important one to boot, we could look at the total amount of money that Mr. Rossi's campaign has been able to raise. So, through Sept. 30 Mr. Rossi has been able to raise just a little over 6 million dollars. Of that he spent a little more than 2.5 million and that left Mr. Rossi about 3.4 million dollars unspent going into the final stretch of the race. I say with the utmost confidence that Mr. Rossi is a quality challenger. He has the previous political experience people look for, the ability to raise lots of money, and has had success in business.


The only time raising over 6 million dollars is not a lot of money is running against an incumbent Senator. Sen. Murray has all the advantages that were discusses with MR. Rossi, donors, volunteers, etc. The biggest difference though is that Sen. Murray has done this more than a handful of times. She is very likely to have a lot of unity and continuity on her campaign staff over the years combined with having held and won this seat over the years is a huge advantage. Again, if we want to try and sum up her advantage in just one metric it would be in total money raised. So, our challenger of raised a little more than 6 million dollars, Sen. Murray is reported to have raised a little more than 14.8 million. Yes, that is more than twice of that Mr. Rossi has raised. Of that 14.8 million that she was able to raise, 14.1 million has been spent. During the same reported period, Mr. Rossi spent 2.5 million to Sen. Murray's 14.1 million, for the sake of simplicity 7:1 ratio. And this gives Sen. Murray a about 1.2 million going into Oct.

Enough really cannot be said about what it takes to knock off an incumbent Senator. Mr. Rossi is a quality candidate and yet raised half of what Sen. Murray has. This is a little difficult to fathom. The money gap is simply enormous. This is why it is sooo challenging to defeat a sitting senator. They posses every advantage at every turn by every possible measurement, BUT, our little engine that could is hanging in there....

That is what makes the 2010 midterms so interesting. The incumbent posses such strength compared to their opponent, yet only lead by a few points or are trailing. The national trend and enthusiasm of the Conservative Republican Base and Tea Party is putting a lot of very powerful Senators and Congressmen in a very different place than what they are used to. Next Monday, on the eve of the election, we will be looking at reasons why I think what candidate will win.

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