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Rauner’s burn rate

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Illinois

Citizens for Rauner Inc., the candidate spent considerably more in the past three months than he took in, dropping a cool $1.5 million on top of the $91,000 he’d spent in March. […]

The bottom line: Mr. Rauner has just $642,001 left of the $2,138,690 he’s raised — not counting $39,000 in debts.

He’s spent $840K on advertising, including $20K on digital ads, almost $160K on payroll, another $170K on consulting, about $26K on legal services, another $7K on health insurance, around $10K on direct mail, a substantial $60K on office rent, over $126K on marketing, and $36K on surveys. He also paid a $315 fine to the State Board of Elections.

Startup costs can be high for a first-time candidate, but that’s still a very big nut to make every month.

The problem for Rauner is that he has to keep advertising or he’s gonna fall off the public’s radar screen.

* Back to Hinz…

…”burn rate” is a concern for every campaign, even those whose candidates can, if needed, just write a check.

American and Illinois politics is filled with examples of wealthy men in search of an office who didn’t end up satisfying anyone except consultants and other hangers-on in search of a big payday.

Ron Gidwitz and his high-dollar Rolodex have apparently arrived just in time.

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 10:55 am

Comments

Oswego Willy and Arthur Anderson must be raking it in!

Comment by Century Club Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:01 am
It is also not counting the “dark” cash he dropped to run Schock out of the race. Has anyone told CounsinBrucey those long radio adds not mentioning his name til the listener has dozed off don’t help?

Comment by CircularFiringSquad Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:02 am
At this rate, OswegoArthurWillyAnderson, LLC should be making plans to expand.

Rapidly.

Comment by Formerly Known As... Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:05 am
I sould have just “sucked it up”, and gotten on this “train”…

$2.1 Million??? Yikes…

Great points, Rich…

===Startup costs can be high for a first-time candidate, but that’s still a very big nut to make every month.===

Maybe Rauner is learning that money spent is money lost, and Gidwitz did, indeed, come at the right time, because Rich guys, hate spending unless return is guaranteed…

===The problem for Rauner is that he has to keep advertising or he’s gonna fall off the public’s radar screen.===

“They don’t know me? Advertise …That didn’t work, advertise more! Try this message, just spend it …”

Rauner my burn out, get burned out, not a good snapshot of someone organized… sounnds more like, “Well, if we spend, that will fix it …”

Rauner is falling into the “Rich guy wants an office” playbook pretty easily, and this spending shows it.

Comment by Oswego Willy Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:05 am
Burn, Rauner, burn! He is paying for ads downstate that around here are not taken seriously! Most people I know joke about the millionaire spending so early. We are more concerned about the heat and lack of rain. Now if Bruce were a real “rainmaker” then he would get our attention!

Comment by Nearly Normal Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:05 am
Per reporting rules, don’t you have to list the end recipient of each dollar? As such, listing “Payroll,” is improper reporting. All other campaigns have the staff’s names, addresses, and salaries for public consumption, per the law. This is what happens when you have out-of-state consultants prepare D-2s.

Comment by Empty Chair Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:07 am
A bit of an irony when these kind of stories come out. Here is this “government is spending too much” guy running for elected office, not only spending too much, but with his political inexperience, has no idea what he is doing. A case can be made, if he gains traction (and I say he doesn’t) that this is how he will govern.

Comment by MrGrassroots Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:08 am
That is incredible. When rich guys start talking about running the state like a business, it frightens me.

Comment by Soccermom Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:10 am
Chair,

Rauner’s D-2’s do break it out, Hinz is reporting on the totals.

I don’t have a handle on what an insurgent statewide campaign should be spending, but the 170K for payroll (for three months!) on top of the consulting fees seems high. If it is, that’s a rookie mistake - too much into staff (which he’s going to keep shelling) so less goes to voter contact.

Comment by Century Club Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:14 am
I don’t want to speak for - AA -, or even - wordslinger -, but our outgoing billing to Rauner … Close to the GNP of a medium-sized 3rd world country …

Think “Mad Men” when they formed the new Ad Firm and got the new office space …then double it…that’s what are new digs are looking to be after our “move”…

Comment by Oswego Willy Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:14 am
Hopefully he will just burn out as he burns through his $. What a disaster his nomination would be…unless you thought Romney did well in Illinois.

Comment by Go Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:19 am
Again, I am toying with this explanation for why Democratic campaign consultants on average are becoming slightly more competent than their GOP counterparts: if you work for the GOP, who cares about efficiency when you can make mucho cash just plucking these millionaires with the same old ad and direct mail buys?

Comment by ZC Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:27 am
I think it goes a little something like “a fool and his money are soon parted”

Comment by Farker Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:28 am
Serious question: What was Obama’s burn rate during his re-election? Wasn’t it pretty high to start, in an effort to define his opposition?

Not saying whether this is good or bad for Rauner, but I see nothing wrong with borrowing from successful playbooks.

Comment by ChrisB Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:32 am
The staff costs are NOT broken out. He just reports a lump sum to the payroll processing company. It’s an ingenious way to disguise how many staff, who, and how much they are making. Ipresume it’s legal, and that is unfortunate.

As for Gidwitz’ role, this will be interesting to watch. In every political situation he’s been in, Gidwitz is used to calling the shots because people need his money and the money he brings to the table. If Rauner is really willing to write $50 million to fund his effort, he will be much less reliant on Gidwitz than to what Ron is accustomed. I suspect Rauner needs Gidwitz not to be on somebody else’s team more than he needs him on Rauner’s team. In any case, prepare for the drama and headaches that are certain to come.

Comment by LincolnLounger Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:33 am
Rauner has not sought to gain any insight into how this politics thing works. It isn’t a private equity deal.

He has done nothing at all to establish any presence among the public nor to define himself as a person.

When a private equity firm shows up to dump in money and expertise to turn around or boost value at a company, the personality, values and temperament of the private equity executive are of relatively little import.

But voting is still an intensely personal act and the voters do consider their personal feelings about a candidate when voting.

So far, Rauner has spent a ton of money to appear overbearing and out of touch.

Being “right” about what a train wreck Illinois is won’t win this race.

…Still, you have to be a little jealous of those feeding at this trough.

Comment by Adam Smith Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:41 am
@Chrisb:

Obamas burn rate actually wasn’t that bad IIRC and unlike Romneys team Obama employed savvy media buyers who locked in lower ad rates sooner whereas Romneys team ironically givrn his background turned out to be bad campaign money managers.

Further, I’m not sure what Rauner spending gobs to define/introduce himself in a contested primary really has to do with Obama, as a known incumbent, using his uncontested primary time and funds to run ads negatively defining his most likely general election opponent. Here Rauner doesn’t have his parties nomination locked up or know for sure who he’s running against and as far as I know he hasn’t run focused attack ads against anyone (at least not with his campaign money).

Comment by hisgirlfriday Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:56 am
The committee is Citizens for Rauner Inc.? They probably should have put a comma in there after Rauner, because so far it looks like “Rauner Inc.” is what we would get if he won.

Comment by Ron Burgundy Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 11:58 am
–The staff costs are NOT broken out. He just reports a lump sum to the payroll processing company. It’s an ingenious way to disguise how many staff, who, and how much they are making. I presume it’s legal, and that is unfortunate.–

Chair and Lounger, I stand corrected - good catch.

Comment by Century Club Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 12:17 pm
If you want to make a small fortune Bruce, go into Statewide politics with a big one. Yup. And if you want to make an even smaller one, tell people how much you have not decided on issues yet when you roll out your campaign. Then pound that Leadership message. Hmmm, no wonder the ads aren’t working.

Comment by A guy... Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 12:39 pm
Ron 2.0

Republican Ron Gidwitz learned the hard way that money doesn’t necessarily equal political success, finishing a distant fourth in the race for his party’s gubernatorial nomination despite spending millions of dollars.
Gidwitz collected more than $12.5 million — much of it from himself — since January 2005 and earned 11 percent of the vote, or about 76,000 votes statewide, according to state records and unofficial vote totals. That equates to more than $163 per vote.

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 12:58 pm
I love these reports. For example, Kelley Folino is making $10,000 a month. To make phone calls to Tea Party groups, I assume.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2598307/posts

Comment by Soccermom Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 1:02 pm
Rauner says he’s worth “hundreds of millions” so this is a drop in the bucket. meg whitman spent $215 million running for governor of california and jon corzine-an Illinois grad spent $62 million of his own dough running for new jersey senate-which he won 13 years ago so this could easily be 8 figures with a crooked number in front he spends running.

http://www.pjstar.com/news/x1665865195/Bernard-Schoenburg-Schock-Rauner-already-at-odds-in-possible-governor-race

Comment by Shore Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 1:02 pm
He’s using Joe Walsh’s fundraiser!

http://pklconsulting.com/

Comment by Soccermom Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 1:05 pm
And Club for Growth’s media consultants http://www.redseallc.com/?page_id=8

(And here’s what centrist Republicans think of Club for Growth.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/07/17/snowe-centrist-gop-group-go-to-war-with-club-for-growth/

Comment by Soccermom Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 1:07 pm
“He’s using Joe Walsh’s fundraiser!
http://pklconsulting.com/”

Hold on I thought Dillard was employing Jeremy Rose, so COR is working for two different Gov Candidates?
http://corstrategies.com/newsite/index.php/pkl-consulting-pamela-kinsey-lungmus/

http://corstrategies.com/newsite/index.php/jeremy-rose/

Comment by hold on Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 1:34 pm
Willy, we should get some vintage Jaguars to go along with the Mad Men office.

Comment by Arthur Andersen Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 4:14 pm
AA,

70’s vintage Rollers would be cheaper and more reliable.

Comment by RNUG Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 4:24 pm
I have not bought into the Rauner message, but I think it is to early to judge his early burn rate strategy as a failure.

This race has a number of unusual dynamics and I am not sure the IL electorate has started paying attention.

One thing is sure, Rauner appears to have knocked Schrock out early and that may well have been a great success, but I am not sure how we can even measure that.

Comment by Endangered Moderate Species Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 4:27 pm
–I love these reports. For example, Kelley Folino is making $10,000 a month. To make phone calls to Tea Party groups, I assume.–

Saw that, Soccermom. Money is obviously no object to this guy and I’d advise everyone who can to get on the train.

He might want to get some pointers from Blair Hull on how to count cards, though. He’s going to need a lot more money.

Comment by wordslinger Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 4:29 pm
@hisgirlfriday

It’s a preemptive strike against what Obama did. Define himself early so that his opposition can’t do it for him. He’s the only candidate that doesn’t have votes to scrutinize. Minus his past campaign donations, he’s essentially a blank slate on every issue. He has to protect his flank.

Then again, I have no idea what his ads look or sound like; I haven’t heard one in the Chicago media yet.

Comment by ChrisB Friday, Jul 19, 13 @ 4:44 pm