Ouch… It’s no wonder that Republican Paul Bucher’s campaign waited until Friday to release it’s fundraising numbers.
In the first six months of 2006 Bucher raised a total of $136,111 while spending $179,950 according to his campaign finance reports and has just over $85,000 left in ‘cash on hand’. That, to put it mildly, is terrible for his campaign at this point in the race.
Compare to the other Republican J.B. Van Hollen who has $417,000+ (part of that is a second mortgage he took on his house) ‘cash on hand’ and has spent $95,000+ so far for his campaign. Clearly the money favorite for the Republicans going into the final stretch of the campaign before the September primary is Van Hollen, and I think that’s the opposite of what most people would have predicted.
The Democratic candidates by the way both have strong campaign war chests at this point. Kathleen Falk has $600,000+ cash on hand and current AG Peg Lautenschlager has over $238,000 in the bank.
I’ve always held the belief that it’s unfortunate that so much money is required to run for political office these days, and I can sympathize with the Bucher campaign in that respect. While every race should be about the issues and the quality of candidates, the sad fact is that we live in a Democracy these days in which money is often the deciding factor in who gets the most votes.
This is very similiar to the problem Scott Walker had in his quest for the GOP nomination for Governor a few months ago. As soon as it was disclosed that he was getting killed in the fundraising department, it pretty much dried up any additional influx of money because for the most part, no one wants to give money to a loser.
And when you’re trailing everyone else in the race by such a wide margin, that perception is hard to shake even for someone like Paul Bucher.
I live in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI with my wife Jen, our daughter Emerson, and sons Carter and Colton.
I see the Democrats actually have an interesting candidate for the Senate this fall. I’ll be tempted to vote for Masel, but since WI closed its primaries I have to choose which party’s candidates I try to help win a nomination or get matching funds. But if he gets the Democrat’s nomination I’ll almost certainly be voting for him.
Oh yeah .. then we can all celebrate “Weedstock”! He would really represent Wisconsin well.
The interesting aspect of the finance reports is that they came out at the same time as the latest polling, showing Bucher is leading in name recognition among the Republicans. His anti-illegal immigration crime initiative is certainly getting a lot of attention in Waukesha county and will probably be used as a model for talking to the rest of the state. I think Bucher will raise enough money to be competitive, and the race will really be close. Van Hollen has to spend much of his resources just to increase voter id, so that temporary cash advantage will melt away pretty quickly.
On the Democrat side, remember Falk and Lautenschlager basically started fundraising at the same time (fundraising was one of the reasons why Lautenschlager was considered vulnerable to a challenge). So Falk is demonstrating some strength, but I think the real story on the Democrat side is how the party is not ready to toss Lautenschlager overboard, prompting the question, will Falk use the drunk driving video?
I thought you might like him. His primary focuses seem to be individual freedom and privacy. That should appeal to real conservatives.
His primary focuses seem to be individual freedom and privacy
We seem to be talking about different people … I thought you were talking about Ben Masel, whose primary focus(es) is(are) certainly not individual freedom and privacy. He’s more focused on drugs, anti-Bush rhetoric, drugs, patriot act, drugs and did I mention drugs?
but I think the real story on the Democrat side is how the party is not ready to toss Lautenschlager overboard
Do you mean party as in the DPW or party as in it’s members through a primary?
About Masel, I think it’s a bit of an overstatement to say he’s just focused on ‘drugs’. He supports pro-marijuana laws, but not ‘pro-drug’ laws as far as I know. He’s also run as a Republican and Libertarian in the past.