Call It A Comeback
A very good start–lots of Illinois money and a little national money to top it off. It does include some people who donated for both the primary and general election, but given he’s unlikely to face any primary opposition, that’s not as unusual as when a primary is contested. Only $1000 in kind.
The round number of $100,000 seemed strange to me, but there isn’t any padding in the numbers so it’s a very good start for this seat.
Not very exciting $38,000 raised with $23,000 on hand. It’s the first cycle for his reporting. He’s using Victory Enterprises out of Davenport.
I’ve hired one of Washington, D.C.’s most respected advisers on congressional ethics issues to make sure that there are no conflicts with my official duties. I consulted with the Ethics Committee and received bipartisan guidance on potential conflicts and situations when I should not vote. The committee’s guidance was very clear — I represent a large constituency and it is my duty to represent them — through my vote unless my wife or I stand to benefit directly and financially because of a vote I cast, which simply is not the case with CAFTA.
To assert that just because my wife is a congresswoman in Guatemala there is automatically a conflict doesn’t make it the case. CAFTA is a regional trade agreement between several nations, not just one, affecting millions of people in seven different countries.
That’s a quaint way of looking at it, but a more realistic is that his wife is an official in a foreign government and hence, there is a conflict of interest in the family.
More bizarre is his insistence on maintaing his membership on the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere that oversees US-Guatemalan relations and certainly deals with issues of human rights. Zury Rios Montt (as her own web site identifies her) is a political supporter and member of a party founded by a man who was a genocidal dictator. How can anyone justify that relationship and his role in overseeing State Department operations in Guatemala?
David Gill filed his 2nd Quarter numbers with just under $14,000 raised and $20,000 on hand. Gill has said he wants to raise at least $300,000 for the cycle, but has just started raising money in earnest.
Most of it is mid-level donations from the district with Robert McChesney being the biggest name on the list that I recognize.
Break out your, “who is the bigger clown” jokes anytime.
Republican state Sen. Peter Roskam, hoping to replace retiring Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), banked nearly $400,000 in his first quarter of fundraising, according to the Roskam campaign.
Roskam?s fundraising total for the three-month period from April 1 through June 30 will put him way ahead of any of his possible rivals for the GOP nomination in the strongly Republican 6th District outside Chicago.
All candidates must file disclosure reports with the Federal Election Commission by July 15.
Roskam now has more than $370,000 cash on hand, drawn from approximately 420 donors, including 100 who donated more than $90,000 online ? figures more closely resembling those of a Senate candidate rather than those of a state lawmaker hoping to get elected to the House.
$90,000 on-line? Jeesh, he’s got some good mailing lists for conservative activists. It’ll be interesting to check out the contributions report at the FEC when it goes live.
I’ll handicap this race with Roskam as a clear favorite until we see Pankau offer up a compelling message and some evidence of strong widespread support. Roskam seems to have the network and money for now.
And Dems are happy with that–though we need to funnel a lot of money to the eventual candidate in the 6th.
Not sure what the last two paragraphs mean, but they are interesting given they are in The Hill.
Last year, Cegelis?s campaign did better than expected at the polls, winning more than 44 percent of the vote. That prompted Democrats to take a hard look at the seat, with many saying that Rep. Rahm Emmanuel (D), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), would make the race a priority, given that it?s in his home state of Illinois.
Cegelis is running on a pro-business, results-oriented platform similar to that of Rep. Melissa Bean, the Democrat who beat Crane in one of the biggest upsets of 2004, Democrats familiar with the district say.
Unfortunately, he didn’t ask her about her current position on Day Light Savings time.
He does ask her about embryonic stem cell research and gay and lesbian civil rights legislation.
Go read the whole thing. I wish I could see their faces because Jeff certainly comes off as having to explain very basic facts to her about discrimination cases.
Pavich is in at $100,000—a good start for a largely unknown challenger. To put it in comparison, Renner raised about $320,000 for his race so this is a much better start. Renner had $70,000 at the point of the primary in 2004 and about $55,000 at the end of 2003 so Pavich is off to a good start. I’m guessing he put in just a bit of his own cash, only because $100,000 is awfully round of a number. Regardless, a great quarter this far out.
From the release:
Beecher, IL July 5, 2005 ? John Pavich, Democratic candidate for Congress in the 11th District of Illinois, today announced that he has raised a total of? $100,000, indicating strong support?for his challenge against Republican incumbent Jerry Weller.
“I am incredibly encouraged and excited about the tremendous amount of support we continue to generate in my campaign to represent the families of Illinois 11th District,? said John Pavich “To date, over 215 individuals have contributed to our race – a strong indication of the widespread support we continue to receive throughout the district.”
In the fundraising quarter that ended June 30th, John Pavich raised a total of $100,023.87.
?I?m running for congress because the people of Illinois? 11th District deserve better. They deserve to be represented by someone who is going to work for them in Washington,? said Pavich. “Fundraising is critical to successfully getting the message out that I am on the right side of the issues that matter most to people of Illinois, and I am incredibly grateful for their continued support.”
Issues of concern to Pavich are those that impact the lives of Illinois? families; protecting social security, providing affordable healthcare, delivering quality education and reversing an unemployment rate that is nearly double the national average throughout the district.
John Pavich is a former intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency?s Directorate of Operations, where he focused mostly on counter-terrorism. This experience, coupled with his legal work at the criminal tribunal in The Hague, gives John a unique perspective on our national security needs.
We got a race–so if you are up for it, donate down at the ACT Blue boxes on the right.
Quick Update: John didn’t put in his own money at all–so even a better showing. I’ll be dissecting the FEC reports next week for all of the races, but this is interesting.
Cegelis posts on her fundraising over at Kos
Generally she makes some good points. I’d say one quibble is that if you have a broad donor base, the larger money should follow–and in fact, that is what Christine is trying to do is show she can raise money and do it well. From there, money begets money. So a quibble, not an argument. On her Act Blue page it says nearly $32,000 raised with an average donation of about $70. That’s pretty impressive.
Beyond being an interesting Illinois race (hello–Peter O’Malley a little activity beyond the district), this kind of race isn’t reshaping politics, but it’s demonstrating new techniques and showing a lot of success. What is different from last cycle is we are still 9 months out of the primary and over a year from the general election. For those that were following blogs and on-line activism back in 2003, Dean was just catching on at this point in the cycle and now we are seeing a variety of candidates getting big responses.
There are some downsides to this in many cases, but I think it certainly moves power closer to the grassroots.
In the Hill–outward support hasn’t changed with Crowley at 42, Schakowsky at 38 and Larson at 17.
BTW, what up with the new Schakowsky blog?
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