Monday, 7 April 2008
Fischer Over A Million in Fund Raising. Does It Matter?
« Beshear Plays Limbo With His Approval Ratings | Main | Northup Likely to Face Yarmuth In Fall »Fischer is going to report he raised over one million dollars at the end of the first reporting period.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Greg Fischer says his upcoming campaign finance report will show that he's collected more than $500,000 from donors in addition to the $510,000 of his own money he has pumped into his bid.
The Fischer campaign is rightly excited about the milestone. They can now be considered serious players in the game.
"Dollar by dollar, voter by voter, momentum is growing stronger in every region of the state. We are confident that our campaign is positioned to defeat Bruce Lunsford on May 20," Fischer said in a statement. "Voters are beginning to realize I am the real Democrat offering real change."
But now for the reality check. He raised $500,000 in the first 3 months of the year. At his current pace he will only have raised about $750,000 by the end of the primary season. That isn't much money compared to the $10,000,000 that McConnell has already raised. The early money is the easy money. It will be interesting to see if he can keep up the pace.
But money isn't his biggest problem. He is polling in the single digits. He needs to start spending the money on advertising yesterday. I have no idea what he is waiting around for. Lunsford is already on the air. McConnell is running ads as well. Soon Hillary and Obama will be filling up the air waves in Kentucky. His opportunity will soon be drowned out in the noise of other campaigns.
In the end, I think the story line for his campaign will be "too late". He was too late entering the race. He is too late in putting his own money into the campaign. He is too late running television ads.
He should have started in the middle of last year. Then he might have had the money an organization to gain name recognition and make a run at the primary. At this point I think he will surpass David Williams, but he will probably finish in a disappointingly distant second place.
