The eight day finance reports started getting posted on the city’s campaign finance page yesterday. I’m still working through putting them on my 2011 Election page, but here are a few highlights so far:
– Next to Mayor Parker, the big spender in October was CM Stephen Costello, who made full use of his deep campaign coffers by spending $127K for the period. Nearly all of that was on media – he reported two separate expenditures to Rindy Miller, one for $20K and one for $100K. I don’t know if one is for radio and the other for TV or if there’s some combination of each in each, but I do know that he has both TV and radio ads running. Clearly, he’s not taking any chances. He also raised $48K for the month, but has only $14K remaining after the big buy.
– Ellen Cohen was another big spender, dropping $91K for October. Her big ticket items were direct mail (one expenditure for $29K and two others for $8175 each) and robocalls ($5450). She also raised another $53K and has $60K still on hand, which will come in mighty handy if she winds up in a runoff.
– Another big raiser was CM Al Hoang, who reported a $53K haul after taking in less than 11K in the previous cycle. Of that $53K, $25K was in kind, with the vast majority of those donations being reported as advertising of some kind – TV, radio, magazine, and newspaper. He’s got his game face on, too.
– Mike Sullivan has no opponent and thus no need to spend money now, but as he has his eye on 2012, he has spent a few bucks to get a head start. He bought a $4K ad at the Texas Conservative Review, and dropped another $10K on something called the What’s Up Program, which my mind keeps wanting to call the What’s Happening!! Program. I figure that buys him a sponsorship mention of some kind, much like what happens incessantly during KILT’s broadcasts of Texans games – “Our commercial outros are brought to you by the Mike Sullivan campaign, because it’s time for a different cranky old white guy to be our Tax Assessor”. Anyway, he’s spending for next year, and he has $55K on hand for it.
– Wanda Adams does have an opponent and has not made any public comments about what if any office she may have an eye on next, but if there is one in her mind she has $77K on hand for it after raising $23K and spending $27K. She spent a few grand on radio ads, and $8500 on a mail piece.
– Finally, the Houston Politics blog reports that Mayoral candidate Jack O’Connor spent $2500 to hire a plane to fly around with a “Jack O’Connor for Mayor” banner behind it. One wonders what the eyeball rate might be for something like that compared to, say, a Facebook ad. I suspect the literature is a bit lacking on that.
I’ll have more tomorrow as I slog on through these things. Greg has more, and the ever-resourceful Erik Vidor has a summary speadsheet.
cm costello stephen is just like jolanda jones/nervous and working the poles-i have said it before and will slang it again/costello can spend a cool million-he still ends up in familiar ground/a run off,and since jolanda jones always go to a run off-this time she will not-she falls short behind jack christie and laurie robinson.originally i predicted ellen cohen with an out right win-i have changed my prediction-she also goes to a run off.The exit polls are super strong with canidate eric dick clearly in the lead in at large # 2.in district b kathy and canidate phillip paul bryant are fighting it out more and more each day,this is the race to keep an eye on.
foot note-stephen costello is one of those people that will always tell you hes broke even if he has 100,000$ dollars of campaign funds on hand,just the other day he told me he was flat broke now i read offthekuff.com and find out costello is spending stacks of cash on advertisments and radio.scott boates shakes things up in his race with a nasty run off-i hear thats when the camp goes negative”full tilt”.
canidate carmona is in full attack mode against veteren noriega-shes worried,he has brought this election”even money” and isnt stopping.
more secrets-sooner than later
joshua ben bullard
Proof the politics makes (very) strange bedfellows. Got a copy of the Texas Conservative Review in the mail. Full page ad on the back cover? Anise Parker.
Mr. Bullard should add a disclaimer that he is working for the Eric Dick campaign.
The only hard races to predict are the at large 2 and 5, and Districts B & C. I know all the Fernando supporters hope against hope, but sorry, he will lose, it will just be a matter of by how much. Costello, Noriega, Bradford will all retain their seats. Much as I would like to see Jo Jo lose hers, she will probably retain hers as well, but not without a run off. Heavy emphasis on probably, I could get fooled on that one. Stardig, Adams, Sullivan, Hoang, Pennington, Gonzalez and Rodriguez will all be returned to office. There are clear front runners in the two new districts as well. I really haven’t followed B closely, so I have no idea there, Alvin Byrd maybe? I think in C we will see a run off between Cweren (sp?) and Cohen, with Cohen ultimately winning. The field is wide open in at large 2, but Eric Dick won’t ultimately prevail. The field will narrow to Thibaut, David Robinson, Bo Fraga. I don’t think Jennifer Rene Poole will make the final cut and I don’t see Eric Dick making it either. Next week we will see how close I get.
Interesting predictions hobby. You are ahead of me on these races. I would like to see Helena, leticia, clyde, and Jones win.
I really don’t know much about Helena or Clyde. As you can gather, I am not a Leticia fan. I know too much about her dishonesty. I saw on the debates where she disavowed any knowledge of the “Seething Republican” blog she and her husband maintained. “I have no idea what you are talking about..” She knows full well what that is all about. Even I was surprised she went that dishonest. She plays injured party when people call her a tea partier with questionable attitudes towards immigration, etc. It is no mystery where people might get that impression. No one else posted entries on the Ablaza’s blog about undocumented immigrants desecrating a flag or killing a nun, (you can’t make this stuff up), stuff clearly designed to be inflammatory & villify undocumented immigrants in the worst way. Which if that is what you want to do, fine, but don’t run from it later when you are running for office in a heavily Hispanic district, you put it out there, then own it. The Ablazas posted all that and then pulled it down when she filed to run for office. It is what it is. If she wants to disavow tea party affiliation, why does her facebook page have two tea party groups under her interest category and why did she post literally dozens of posts on the Houston tea party facebook page last summer (before she filed)? Why did she ask them to join her in her protests? She clearly chose to align herself with them, which is fine, I’m no tea-party type but to each his own. What I find disgraceful is when it isn’t political advantageous to stand by those principles, she disavows them and acts like she doesn’t know what you are talking about. She lacks the personal integrity to stand by those ideals. Instead, pulling down their blogs, disavowing knowledge of same, and acting like she doesn’t understand why people would claim she held the very beliefs she has been promoting publicly for years.
I favor another candidate, but I think Andrew Burks in the at large 2 contest has some strengths and is likely to be the frontrunner in that contest First, he has some name ID from past contests, where he has run close. Second, he is black, in an electorate which is at least 1/3 black and sometimes votes along racial lines. (and the field in at large 2 is huge) Third, the areas of the city with highest black populations all have active local district contests, in Districts B, D, and the new K, while mostly Anglo E has no contest, and largely Anglo A and G have contests but the local contest does not seem to be driving turnout within those districts. Rozzy Shorter is also black, however, and could fracture race-linked voting patterns. I am just not informed well enough about the black elecorate in this cycle to know for sure. Also, the Laurie Robinson v. Jolanda Jones contest will likely drive up black voter participation this cycle.
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