* Heather Cherone at the Daily Line…
On his way to a ninth-place finish in the race for Chicago mayor, Paul Vallas racked up bills totaling $885,357 sending unsolicited text messages to Chicagoans touting his campaign, according to documents filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections.
In addition, when the former Chicago Public Schools CEO closed his Paul Vallas for All Chicago campaign committee on Sept. 11, he still owed Link2Tek — the Asheville, North Carolina-based firm that sent the messages — $535,357 after paying the firm $350,000, according to state records.
Along with the outstanding debt, Vallas’s defunct campaign committee faces an ongoing lawsuit that claims the text messages violated federal law. […]
The class-action lawsuit, filed by attorney James Vlahakis on behalf of Chicagoans Jake Campbell and Jeff Klueh, alleges the system used by Link2Tek is an autodialer “dressed in sheep’s clothing.”
I just never did understand what he was trying to accomplish with the over-reliance on text messaging. I’m pretty sure he didn’t, either.
- Cheryl44 - Monday, Sep 30, 19 @ 9:37 am:
What, we don’t have a company in Chicago that could have annoyed us like this?
- Streamwood Retiree - Monday, Sep 30, 19 @ 9:41 am:
He probably thought he was going to reach Millenials who text people sitting right next to them. But no one wants text advertising spam. Just like no one wants that voice call spam with the faked calling number.
- Doug - Monday, Sep 30, 19 @ 9:43 am:
It’s because that is what Beto did in Texas against Cruz. The dems rolled the practice out nationwide after his successful losing campaign.
- Arock - Monday, Sep 30, 19 @ 10:03 am:
Explains why he was at one point the Chicago Public Schools CEO, knowing how to spend money frivolously with bad results. Common theme of many of the leaders in Illinois politics the last few decades as well.
- lakeside - Monday, Sep 30, 19 @ 10:09 am:
This is the kind of financial and management discipline that would have made him a great mayor of Chicago.
- Quizzical - Monday, Sep 30, 19 @ 11:13 am:
I can’t say whether I would have would up voting for him or not, but he was out of consideration after I got the fifth text.
- Anon E Moose - Monday, Sep 30, 19 @ 11:53 am:
I responded to these and the campaign staffers’ response was that this was the only way to reach people. Glad he didn’t win.
- 47th Ward - Monday, Sep 30, 19 @ 2:54 pm:
And he was considered the “smart” candidate.
- ArchPundit - Monday, Sep 30, 19 @ 4:57 pm:
He blew all his campaign funds and more on a weird firm that has like two campaigns that spent significant money on them. He not only annoyed thousands of people, he lost badly.