Much has been made of Jim Ryun's spending this year. And, it's worth being somewhat critical because it's based on a risky strategy.
But, it's important to look inside the spending. If you look at the amount of money Ryun has raised from contributors who give less than $200 (known as unitemized contributions) it is quite substantial. This is a result of Ryun's spending on direct mail - the majority of Ryun's spending. In fact, it looks like Ryun spent as much on direct mail as he raised. This is what you have to do to build a bigger donor file.
A closer look at the numbers reveals that Ryun raised approximately $413,000 from small donors. If the average small contribution is $50, then Ryun raised this from approximately 8,000 donors.
A direct mail person will tell you that a small donor, on average will donate two more times this coming year. Ryun can probably count on 16,000 more $50 donations, with very little relative costs of fundraising. So, in theory, Jim Ryun will raise $800,000 from these donors in 2008, and it will probably cost him around $150,000 to raise it - a net of $650,000 without having one person capable of giving him more than $200.
By comparison, Nancy Boyda-Pelosi has received $73,742 from small donors, roughly 18% of Ryun's contributions. So, she would net about $117,000 from small donors in 2008, $533,000 less than Ryun, at the current pace.
Lynn Jenkins has received $38,308 from small donors, 9% of Ryun's. On this pace, she would net about $60,000 from small donors, $590,000 less than Ryun.
IF, Ryun capitalizes on this new and improved "house file" of donors without his vendor soaking him, he is well positioned to have a broad fundraising base of donors his opponents cannot compete with. He will have to rely less on big donors and PACs. This is particularly important for Ryun and may actually draw him more help from the national party and outside groups if his fundamentals are strong.
Again, this is the THEORY on which Ryun appears to be fundraising and spending. IF it works as planned in 2008, he will be well positioned to quickly and easily outraise the others in the race.
IF it does not work, he will have essentially spent a year churning mail.
As with anything in politics, it's a big IF.
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16 comments:
Here's the real question. Why does a man who is in no legal trouble pay $12,000 for attorney fees over a 4 month period? Answer ... he doesn't.
There are any number of reasons to pay an FEC lawyer, but $3000 a month for a lawyer in DC will get you about 10 hours of work per month . . . not exactly what you'd have to spend if you had real legal trouble.
I would agree with that, but it appears he is paying someone else to file his FEC reports, again suspcitious.
What you guys fail to mention about Nancy Boyda is that, other than the non-Pelosi-Pelosi event, she has done NO FUNDRAISING WHATSOEVER yet. So that means all the money that she has raised this year has been virtually unsolicited...and she's still has the most money. Imagine what it will look like when she starts trying.
Of course Boyda is not soliciting through small donors. Lobbyists are padding her FEC report and the DCCC continues to send her Frontline checks. Come on, it takes a few simple clicks at fec.gov to track her quarter by quarter donations. Bump it up against any other Democrat freshman taking official Frontline money and something strange happens. Almost check for check, Boyda is taking Frontline money! Wow. Shocker.
That whole "not trying" thing is ridiculous . . .
And, it belies the point of what I think BB is trying to make here, and that is that even if Boyda isn't trying, she can't create a big donor file like Ryun now has over night. It takes a year, and you have to be willing to not net any money in the process.
Finally, after the primary in August, money will pour into the second district from all sides. Look for Boyda to spend $2 million in the fall, Ryun or Jenkins to spend $1.5 million just in the fall, and outside groups to spend at least another $1 million. Add that to whatever Ryun and Jenkins spend in the primary and your're talking somewhere north of $6 million, nearly triple what was spent in 2006.
Oh, and if we thought 2006 was nasty, you haven't seen anything yet. There will be plenty of scorched earth.
Remember Jim may be raising a lot of money ..... but a lot of these donors are also from out of state ..... he is not seeing a lot of support from Kansas .... the people who will be voting or not voting him into office.
Ha! Ha! You mean the 2,000 new small dollar Kansas donors that Ryun has picked up? Yeah, I would be soooo disappointed if I had only picked up a few thousand new donors. From Kansas.
Has anyone been following Ryun's press releases? A few months ago he said he'd picked up something like 1,300 new donors in Kansas, then another one announced another 250. I don't know about 2,000 new Kansas donors, but he's certainly picked up quite a few.
Anyone have any idea how many Kansas donors Boyda and Jenkins have?
What? No reply from either the Boyda or Jenkins' camps on new Kansas donors? Or maybe the resounding silence is the reply.
Umm, Jim Ryun also put out a press release saying he didn't know Mark Foley was his neighbor, so I'll believe his Kansas donors when I see them. Have you actually looked at his report? His number 1 source of $ this past quarter? Washinton DC. His number 2 source of $? Texas. Kansas does come in at third, so that's nice for him ...
I think posters #9 and #10 were simply making the point that Ryun has a lot of new Kansas donors, small dollar ones at that. If that is the case, he has a lot more potential to tap in state dollars, something Boyda obviously does not have. Jenkins might, though.
I seemed to have missed the Ryun press release regarding Foley. Can you go ahead and post it?
Boyda isn't fundraising? What? Why does the DC event with lobbyists paying her back for the earmark she secured not count?
Don't bother the Boyda backers with the facts, they just get in the way.
boyda isn't fundraising...what you see are just the benefits of being an incumbent....and, you know, it's really really obvious that Boyda's raising money in her district at a much better clip than either ryun or jenkins- but particular ryun.
It would be nice if some of you fellow posters would do your homework. A quick look at opensecrets.org and you would see the following numbers. Raised in Kansas: Jenkins $230,938 (92% of total) Ryun $87,585 (35% of total) Boyda $195,050 (73% of total) So Jenkins is the Kansas winner, this with Boyda being an incumbent and Ryun with 100% name recognition. Anyone can claim all their unitemized are Kansas donations, but there is no way to prove it. Fact is the big Kansas donations are going to Jenkins. Look at the top ten zip codes of Ryuns donations and most of them are out of state. One other interesting thing on Boyda's. Her single biggest contributors are Law Firms and Lawyers, 3rd in line are other democratic candidates. Also Boyda gets 81.5% of her contributions from Labor and Single Issue groups. So much for being independent.
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