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Kirk’s numbers rank high - And a botched House funder
Friday, Jul 16, 2010 - Posted by Rich Miller * The Washington Post has a great table of quarterly campaign contributions in active US Senate and House races. You can sort the data all sorts of way, including by amount raised and cash on hand. Republican Congressman Mark Kirk ranked 8th in the nation with his $2.3 million quarterly haul. Kirk raised just $100,000 less than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Impressive. Giannoulias’ $900K ranked him at 28th. Kirk finished 15th in the country for his cash on hand of $4 million. Giannoulias ranked 37th. Over in the House, Republican Bob Dold ranked 22nd in the country with his $564,000 raised last quarter. His 10th CD Democratic opponent Dan Seals was two notches below with his $556,000 total. Democratic Rep. Bill Foster ranked 21st in the nation for his $1.6 million cash on hand. Rep. Debbie Halvorson was 8 slots lower with her $1.4 million. Here’s the Illinois list…
* Back in June, the state’s entire Republican congressional delegation held a fundraiser for three House GOP candidates, Adam Kinzinger, Bob Dold and Randy Hultgren. House Republican Leader John Boehner was a featured guest, as were House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions and Chief Deputy Whip Kevin McCarthy. Click here to watch raw video of some of the men arriving at the funder. The money contributed at the fundraiser was supposed to be split up equally between the three candidates, with part of the bigger checks going to the NRCC. The reason for this split is that the three campaigns had formed a “Joint Federal Committee” with the NRCC called the Illinois Majority Fund. The event was a financial disaster. It was put together in just ten days, a bunch of other Chicago fundraisers were scheduled around the same time and a mere $16,000 was raised. Even the split got screwed up. Bob Dold didn’t get a single dime. Adam Kinzinger received $1,000. Randy Hultgren got $2,500. It cost about $1,300 to put on the event at the Chicago Club while much of the rest was split up between three consultants. The split was apparently messed up because some attendees had already maxed out to some of the candidates, I’ve been told by two people close to the disaster. My questions about the uneven split and the botched funder were referred to the National Republican Congressional Committee. Cabell Hobbs, the NRSC/NRCC Victory Committee treasurer, is the treasurer of the Illinois Majority Fund. Here’s the NRCC’s non-response…
Apparently, bringing in just about every big gun in the world didn’t work.
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- ugo - Friday, Jul 16, 10 @ 2:50 pm:
Typical for the NRCC… they are the only ones that don’t realize how inept they are.
- Whatever - Friday, Jul 16, 10 @ 2:52 pm:
What a joke. More good staff work, obviously. Seems like all the “consultants” got their cut, even if the candidates didn’t.
- Cincinnatus - Friday, Jul 16, 10 @ 2:57 pm:
Where’s Ben Lowe?
- raising kane - Friday, Jul 16, 10 @ 3:04 pm:
Typical Washington committee stuff, big on consultants,not so big on helping the candidates. Fortunately Dold and Kinzinger arent waiting around for them to “help”.
- Anon - Friday, Jul 16, 10 @ 3:08 pm:
Shocking that the NRCC screwed something up.
- shore - Friday, Jul 16, 10 @ 3:23 pm:
That’s a really good catch, if the money raised was so low why did they come in and why not reschedule it? Then again even a partisan republican such as I would not pay to see boehner and cantor.
Foster’s done a pretty solid job.
I hope kinzinger and hultgren have amazing ground games because they are going to be outspent by at least 1 million bucks and that does not include this obama for america fundraiser august 5th they they are having here for el presidente to presumably help out the congresscritters.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Jul 16, 10 @ 3:26 pm:
Thanks, shore. It started out with a question from somebody who was looking at reports about what that Illinois Majority Fund was.
Google is an amazing tool sometimes.
- A.B. - Friday, Jul 16, 10 @ 3:29 pm:
Ditto to Shore’s compliments.
Just picking up on that is an accomplishment, let alone doing the research.
- wordslinger - Friday, Jul 16, 10 @ 3:50 pm:
I imagine the GOP could raise more money if they stood for something that mattered.
That Boehner aint exactly the Henry Clay of his time.
- Liandro - Friday, Jul 16, 10 @ 3:55 pm:
Foster’s done a solid job? Oh, man, I couldn’t disagree more. I was trying to contact him from Iraq, no dice. He refused to hold town halls when the district was demanding answers, and he only showed up in my area to tout his earmarks for things like the Reagon anniversary. He was on the financial services committee but wouldn’t be pinned down on what he wanted to do with legislation issues going through. What a waste.
Around this west part of the district Foster has a well-earned reputation of distancing himself from his constituants. Maybe closer to Chicago he is showing his face, and I’m sure he answers questions from people like Rich. But deployed constituants get nothing, and communities get earmarks in place of leadership.
Normaly, for someone with Foster’s voting record, I would just vote against them. But when you add in how derelict he has been on the job, he earned my wrath, and I am actively volunteering against him. So far, he is the ONLY candidate I am actively volunteering against. It helps that Hultgren is an immensely better candidate then Oberweis. I generally only volunteer for one candidate per cycle; this cycle it is Randy Hultren vs Foster.
I can give you spot analysis of Dem friends I have switching against Foster, but stories really don’t matter. November matters, and I’ve been around from Dixon’s Petunia Festival to West Chicago’s Railroad Days working to get rid of Foster. Hasta luego Bill.
- just sayin' - Friday, Jul 16, 10 @ 3:59 pm:
Kirk remains close to the fellow soldiers with whom he stormed Omaha Beach in the first wave, in the first landing craft. They are very generous.
- shore - Friday, Jul 16, 10 @ 4:07 pm:
I was talking about his fundraising, not his quality of work as a congressman.
according to the sweet post, that amounts to 11 members of congress attending/16k raised, not good.
alexi and kirk also have joint fundraising groups-alexi’s was the source of the fundraiser in canada that sweet wrote about which came too late for this quarter.
kirk also has one
http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2009/12/nrsc_faces_new.php