Search Results for ‘money reports’
In an interview with a progressive blog today, Ed Fallon claimed, “We’re doing really well, our own internal polling shows us up.” It’s not a surprise for Fallon to make a claim when the Boswell campaign released its own internal from Anzalone Lizst, the firm that polled for new Democratic Congressmen Don Cazayoux and Travis Childers, that had Boswell receiving 65% of the vote.
This jibes with the KCCI poll that had Boswell winning by a two to one margin. However, Fallon’s campaign finance reports, which show him having only $28,000 on hand the day before he had to meet payroll, does not show him spending any money on pollsters. (Nor does it show him spending on money on television, radio, mail, newspaper advertisements or any other form of paid media) So if Ed Fallon hasn’t hired a pollster and can’t afford to pay one, why does he claim he has internal polling, let alone internal polling that seems at odds with all the other information about this race?
Our guess is that Ed Fallon probably took a survey, not a poll. A survey is unscientific and involves asking a bunch of people without dealing with complicated things like sample size or filtering likely voters. This means that Ed Fallon may actually be ahead according to his “polling”, provided, of course, that a third of the electorate are vegetarians from Sherman Hill and everyone who votes outside Polk County is a member of CCI. Then again, this blog may be given Fallon too much credit for assuming that he merely mistook the difference between a survey and a poll. (Which is covered the second week of Statistics 101).
Fallon has a history of lying and of sleazy behavior. He may have just made up his “internal polling” entirely, which would be a good deal for Fallon. After all, the less he spends on internal polling, the more money he can pay himself.
May 22nd, 2008
While most of the attention paid to Iowa fundraising numbers in the first quarter of this year went to the 3rd District primary, it’s worth noting that there is a Democratic primary in the 4th District too. However, the haul for Democrats there was much less promising. Two of the candidates, William Meyers and Kevin Miskell have not even filed reports with the FEC. This is a sign that they have either not raised enough money to need to file reports or they are too incompetent to get their information in on time. One suspects that the former is the case but no matter what the scenario, it does not mark them as promising candidates in the primary (let alone in a general election against a well-funded long-time incumbent).
Of the remaining two candidates, Kurt Meyer raised $130,000 but, of that sum, $100,000 came from Meyer himself. Of the remaining $30,000, there are two noteworthy donors. The Mitchell County Democratic Party gave Meyer $500 and 2006 Democratic nominee for the 4th District, Selden Spencer, gave $250. It is also worth noting that 85% of Meyer’s itemized donations came from out of state. However, Meyer ended the quarter with $108,000 cash on hand.
Becky Greenwald raised almost $24,000 although $3,500 of that sum came from her own pocket. Of the rest, almost half came from donors with the last name Garst. As Greenwald’s mother was married to a member of the Garst family, it’s not a surprise that she was able to take advantage of her familial connections for her campaign. In fact, one of the Garsts, Marilyn Garst of Coon Rapids, has already maxed out to Greenwald for both the primary and general elections. This means that nearly 10% of the money Greenwald raised in the quarter cannot be used in a primary. However, as Greenwald was holding a major fundraiser with Tom Vilsack after the end of the quarter, one suspects her fundraising will increase. But in the meantime, she ended the quarter with just over $20,000 on hand.
Both Greenwald and Meyer are strong candidates but it’s still unclear what the result of what will almost certainly be a sleepy, low-turnout primary will be. While Greenwald will stand out as the only woman on the ballot (and Meyer has a very similar last name to Meyers), there are also very competitive primaries in Mason City and Decorah, which will drive turnout in the northern part of the district. As Meyer is from Northern Iowa while Greenwald is from Dallas County, this may help him if voters base their decision on geography. But then again, most voters may not know who any of the congressional candidates even are, let alone where they are from.
April 16th, 2008
The Des Moines Register reports that Tom Vilsack is ending his bid to be President today. Vilsack will apparently cite his inability to raise the money necessary to compete successfully for the Democratic nomination. It had long been rumored that Vilsack had serious financial woes due to weak fundraising and the need to pay the large field staff he had already hired. Although Vilsack had attracted quite a bit of grassroots support in Iowa and was still neck and neck with first tier candidates in a recent poll of caucusgoers, his support outside the Hawkeye State was minimal.
Tom Vilsack was the first serious Presidential contender to announce he was running and is the first to drop out. Although it’s not a surprise that Vilsack campaign didn’t pan out. However, that he’s dropping out almost a year before the caucuses and only a week after Vilsack made a relatively successful appearance on the Tonight Show is a shock. What the most disturbing thing is that Vilsack’s campaign is ending this early. In 1960, John F. Kennedy didn’t start his campaign until December 1959, in 2000, George W. Bush didn’t start to run until June 1999, now we have candidates dropping out 21 months before the election. It is a disturbing trend.
February 23rd, 2007
I have to admit something right up top: I am a reluctant subscriber to the Atlantic (Monthly). It came free as some credit card rewards program, so I get it. I’m not always proud of it, but whatever.
So when a fellow IowaProgress team member told me that I should check out the March issue for a mention of the local State House race here last year (between Democrat Eric Palmer and ousted Republican Danny Carroll), I was pleased to find it already sitting on my coffee table. Then I started reading it (online version here), and even before I finished the second sentence, I knew I wasn’t going to be happy. Here’s how writer Joshua Green begins:
A tough loss can be hard to swallow, and plenty of defeated politicians have been known to grumble about sinister conspiracies. When they are rising stars like Danny Carroll, the Republican speaker pro tempore of Iowa’s House of Representatives, and the loss is unexpected, the urge to blame unseen forces can be even stronger—and in Carroll’s case, it would have the additional distinction of being justified.
Yes, Danny Carroll was a rising star, victimized by “unseen forces” at work in House District 75. Perhaps had Carroll simply leaned on this leading consulting firm a little more, he would’ve won. But these “unseen forces” at work weren’t ghosts, ghouls, or the powerful anti-pumpkin lobby, it was something of a gay political stealth force (led by this man), out to get good little homophobes like Danny.
Yes, it is true that Eric Palmer got money from out-of-state donors, and perhaps some of them are gay. Some of them are also probably straight. Many out-of-state donors give money to one person hoping that their opponent will lose, and many of them do so on the basis of the different candidates’ political positions. Danny Carroll got money from such donors (although much of it was channeled through Christopher Rants’s PAC), as did Eric Palmer. This is not news.
It seems that even Danny himself didn’t think there was anything to this story at first. In fact, Danny probably had the right idea before the reporter tried to change his interview subject’s mind mid-interview. This paragraph is the kicker:
Carroll was just sitting down to dinner but agreed to talk about his loss, which he attributed to the activism of Grinnell College students. A suggestion that he’d been targeted by a nationwide network of wealthy gay activists was met with polite midwestern skepticism.
Yup, that’s right: Danny’s pretty sure it was us. We’re pretty sure it was us. And the number of college students who voted for Eric Palmer is remarkably close to the number of votes Danny lost by. But Joshua Green still blames the gays. Green convinces Danny to look at the IECDB reports from the 2006 race, and here’s where things go from there:
Scrolling through the thirty-two-page roster of campaign contributors revealed plenty of $25 and $50 donations from nearby towns like Oskaloosa and New Sharon. But a $1,000 donation from California stood out on page 2, and, several pages later, so did another $1,000 from New York City. “I’ll be darned,” said Carroll. “That doesn’t make any sense.” As we kept scrolling, Carroll began reading aloud with mounting disbelief as the evidence passed before his eyes. “Denver … Dallas … Los Angeles … Malibu … there’s New York again … San Francisco! I can’t—I just cannot believe this,” he said, finally. “Who is this guy again?”
Eric Palmer got $1,000 from New York?!?!?! And more donations from Dallas and Denver?!?!?! Shucks! I guess that means Eric won because of the gay agenda then.
Seriously, though, how is this puff piece journalism? People with certain interests donate to political campaigns across the country all the time, on both sides. Not everyone knows why every donor donates, and in many cases the candidates don’t even know what a donor’s agenda might be. It isn’t like Eric had a huge resource advantage over Danny, either. It may be sensational because a few of Palmer’s donors were gay, but it is certainly nothing new.
If this was our 15 minutes of national media fame, I’m going to be very disappointed.
February 13th, 2007
In the past couple days pretty much all anyone is talking about are the candidates’ reports filed yesterday on money raised and spent. The reports are available on the IECDB website.
If you want a good summary, see what Chris Woods over at Political Forecast has to say. He has a good post exclusively on the gubernatorial race, where Culver has out-fundraised Nussle by $200,000. It is certainly interesting to see who’s been donating, including a selection of presidential hopefuls.
Looking closer to home in Grinnell’s State House race in the last quarter (July 15-Oct 14)
Danny Carroll
CoH: $35,808.04
Cash contributions: $94,367.40
In-kind contributions: $104,239.94
Expenditures: $85,435.83
Debt: $0
Eric Palmer
CoH: $11,487.12
Cash contributions: $60,095.60
In-Kind contributions: $40,233.94
Expenditures: $65,226.97
Debt: $0
Clearly it isn’t great news to see that Carroll has more money than Palmer at this point in the game, and Palmer certainly could’ve used the money from Warner’s PAC. However, I also know that Palmer has been working tirelessly on this campaign, and it seems impossible that someone could meet both the candidates and not come away with a better impression of Eric.
October 20th, 2006
I haven’t seen anyone else comment about the most recent Rasmussen Iowa poll, so I’ll point out a few highlights. First and foremost is the fact that every single Democratic candidate has made gains on Nussle, culminating in Culver now reaching a 6 point lead over Nussle. Reading further into the Poll, however, and we can see just how polarized politics, and particularly “hot-button issues” are becoming in Iowa. For example, even though the primary hasn’t happened yet, only 12% of voters have not made up their mind about Nussle, a guaranteed candidate. Seems like a lot of money is going to be wasted this summer and fall preaching to either the choir or deaf ears. If only campaign money could be spent on something more important…like the things the politicians are promising (you know, crazy stuff, such as.. education, or health care).
In other news, the Register reports that Mike Johanns, former Gov. of Nebraska and current Secretary of Agriculture, has now learned what everyone in Iowa has known for years: the current subsidy system is broken.
One of my favorite senators, our Tom Harkin, is bringing a resolution to the Senate that calls for America to withdraw from Iraq by Dec. 31st at the latest. Another of my favorites, Russ Feingold, is trying to attach similar legislation to emergency spending bills. I give props to those in Congress who are willing to stand up and offer actual time frames for bringing home the troops, rather than politicians who just proffer vagueries and false promises as they see more and more Americans lose favor with the war.
In more national news, it appears Karl Rove has returned to what he does best: trying to get Americans to remember that Democrats are the enemy, not terrorists or insurgents. I guess we really do have them nervous about 2006. I for one will enjoy Bush’s final two years as the lamest of lame duck presidents ever to exist.
May 8th, 2006
It seems these days that as candidates begin to gear up for 2008, Iowa becomes a revolving door for those with aspirations of presidential glory. To wit, just today our fine state was graced with the presence of none other than Bill Frist, everyone’s favorite ultra-conversative surgeon and part-time senate majority leader. Apparently, Frist is in town to tout health care legislature to be proposed in Congress, which though it isn’t “the complete answer,” will “shrink the number of uninsured Americans.” One might surmise that when a medically trained doctor attains the leadership of the senate, we might see more aggressive health care legislation, but it seems Dr. Frist is more preoccupied with pandering to the religious right.
In keeping with Iowa’s status as a revolving door for 2008 candidates, the Washington Post reports that in a week none other than Rudy Giuliani will be in Iowa raising money for republican gubernatorial candidate, Jim Nussle. Does this mean Rudy has a huge affinity for Nussle and just wants to see a local boy do good, or does Rudy have machinations on sitting pretty in the oval office one day soon? Giuliani recently went through Pennsylvania and raised money for Rick Santorum, and given Santorum’s sparkling personality and credentials, one might postulate that the only reason for Giuliani’s visits is to broaden his visibility nation-wide? Rudy in ‘08? We shall see.
Next, on this page on The Post’s website, called The Fix, one can find blog style entries about national politics. Of interest is that Friday’s entry handicaps Iowa as the number 3 most contested gubernatorial election happening in ‘06. Also of interest is the fact that while the blurb on Iowa mentions that Ed Fallon is polling equal to Mike Blouin with a laughable fraction of the money, Fallon has no candidate profile on the Post’s page regarding Iowa.
A couple more things of note. Today Jim Nussle proposed an energy bill in congress featuring a mandate to increase renewable energy. This sure seems like convenient timing after virtually every democratic candidate Nussle is likely to face in November has already come out strongly for renewable energy. As well, this bill doesn’t cover renewable energy for electricity, but only renewable energy as a gasoline replacement. Iowa has the ability to be energy independent, and it’s perhaps time to realize that ethanol85 may not be the answer. Nussle is trying to turn E85 into what amounts to a hotbutton issue for Iowa, not recognizing the fact that E85 is still dependent upon gasoline, and that Iowans are abroad and dying in a misguided war to secure the future of our gasoline-dependent state. Renewable for Iowa does not mean just ethanol, and this legislation is a smoke-screen to get Iowans to think that Nussle is an energy responsible candidate.
In local legislature, the budget talks remain deadlocked, the contentious issues being pay raises for teaches (how in anyone’s right mind can they oppose this?) and tax cuts for seniors.
Finally: All Iowans between 18 and 22 are now eligible for Mumps vaccinations, regardless of whether they are enrolled in college. If you don’t have it, I’d recommend looking into getting vaccinated.
April 24th, 2006
Taking advantage of the Easter holiday, Gov. Vilsack chose to ride out the tornados (hope everyone out there is safe and sound) by taking a trip out to Iraq. Is this trip a reflection of Vilsack’s desire to keep in touch with Iowans serving abroad, or is it the continuation of his efforts to build up a cache of international credentials? Does our man in Des Moines really want a crack at the White House? If so, he’d better start flexing some fundraising muscle, as PAC money reports show that this year Vilsack has only raked in $400,600, compared with a cool $6 million for Hillary.
The Iowa legislature resumes Tuesday, hoping to hammer out what remains on the budget. Among the notables is haggling over proposed pay raises for teachers, as the Register reports that Iowa now ranks only 41st in teacher pay grade. Aren’t our schools supposed to be a centerpiece? Gov. Vilsack has also earmarked close to $15 million to allow every 4 year-old in Iowa the chance to go to preschool.
Finally, for those keeping up on the immigration debate, here’s an article showing the effects that restricting migrant labor would have on Iowa’s agriculture. If Iowa is already experiencing labor shortages, what’s it going to take to get Steve King to stop running his mouth?
And, if you haven’t seen it: why everyone should love Al Gore. (you need quicktime to watch).
April 17th, 2006
Today the Register reports that (surprise surprise) Iowa House Republicans neglected to pass an education bill that would increase teacher salaries or funding for preschools. Republican House Speaker Rants:
“We have a revenue estimate that we have to abide by, by law,” he added. “I wish we had more to give, but that’s the amount of money we have available to spend.”
Can you blame them? Allocating tight funds sure is hard, ain’t it? Sure we all want teacher salary increases, but where will the money come from? Certainly not a cigarette tax.
Democrats failed to get a cigarette tax increase approved Wednesday in the Iowa House.
Rants, a Sioux City Republican, is against a tobacco tax increase and says the revenue it would raise would set the budget up for trouble in the future as cigarette sales declined.
Would revenue really fall significantly from a tax? New Yorkers pay 7.50 for a pack of cigarettes and yet the percentage of smokers is just under the national average. What gives?
Sure, there’s evidence that cigarette tax increases lower smoking, but the decline in use is most significant among children. And with ballooning state medical costs (the proposed tax was designed to pay for health care in the first place), reducing smoking can save money in the long term by cutting out a major source of health care woes- cigarettes.
Maybe Iowa Republicans should put that in their pipe and smoke it.
March 16th, 2006
