Go to BeeHiveSites.com to learn more!
Rishell’s Expenses
By RHarrison | 2 October 2007 | Jeanette Rishell | 9 Comments
Much has been made of Jeanette Rishell’s fundraising. As of the last report (which covered until the end of August), Ms. Rishell has raised $128,583 for her campaign. Wow!
Well… not so much.
There is a considerable amount of padding in there - just like her last campaign. For example, Ms. Rishell claims the rent she could have charged her campaign staff for staying in her house, had she charged them, as a contribution. This amounts to $12,372, so far. When you add in the use of her own car ($13,602) and her own furniture ($10,592) you have 29% of her total receipts accounted for. While this is legal, it is very deceptive - although quite honest by Ms. Rishell’s recent standards.
There are a few other unusual things in Ms. Rishell’s report. First, both of Ms. Rishell’s staffers and at least two of her three campaign consulting companies are from outside Virginia: New York City and Texas. Her staffers are from New York and San Diego. The companies that did Ms. Rishell’s signs, printing, shirts, banners, and logo are also not located in Virginia, but rather Pennsylvania, Texas, Delaware and Connecticut. Can’t Ms. Rishell find any Virginia companies that she likes?
If you are wondering, Ms. Rishell’s campaign consultants are:
S&W Capitol Advisors (www.swcapitoladvisors.com) is a Texas-based opposition research firm that works for “progressive” candidates. These are probably the guys who “discovered” that Del. Miller voted to raise his own salary. So perhaps Ms. Rishell can get her $4,222 back from them.
The Global Strategy Group (www.globalstrategygroup.com) is a very high-powered Democratic consulting group based in
New York City. They have run campaigns for Gov Eliot Spitzer of NY, Sen. John Edwards and Al Gore’s Presidential run in 2000. I suspect they designed the lovely mailings we have all been receiving, which we must admit look nice. They have been paid $12,500 so far.
Finally, Ms. Rishell apparently doesn’t know the address of one of her top consultants. Ms. Rishell has paid “Metropolitan Field Associates” $4,400, but was unable to include an address on her report. According to her campaign finance reports, the company is located in the 20110 zip code and Ms. Rishell has “requested” its address, but hasn’t gotten a response yet. Even stranger, the company apparently does not have a website and isn’t in the phone book. It makes one wonder whether they exist at all.
It is clear that Jeanette Rishell blew a huge amount of her actual contributions on paid consultants and staff (60% of all expenditures) who knew very little about the 50th District. Having lots of money is nice, but if you don’t spend it well, you are not going to win. We don’t yet know how much Ms. Rishell’s mailings cost, but they weren’t cheap. Yet we saw in the MJM today that they have done her campaign serious harm.
My guess is Ms. Rishell was told by campaign experts that the way to win was to hire campaign experts. She did, and then did exactly what they told her to do. But a State Delegate race, even one that raises lots of money, can’t pay these big name consultants enough to get them to really focus on the race. It looks like they did just enough work to justify their bills, and then moved on to better things. Ms. Rishell’s campaign, and reputation, don’t mean that much to them.
When a candidate hires a campaign consultant, the first thing he or she needs to do is say “no” to something, just to remind the consultant and the candidate who is in charge. I doubt Ms. Rishell ever did that.
The opinions expressed here are solely the views of the author, and not representative of the position of any organization, political party, doughnut shop, knitting guild, or waste recycling facility, but may be correctly attributed to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. If anything in the above article has offended you, please click here to receive an immediate apology.
You can follow the discussion through the Comments feed.
9 Comments
Views: 1198
Loading ...
Mr. Harrison, as usual your analysis is very informative. I dont think this information will play much with the voter, but it is good informative reading and helps the very interested voter get a feel for the candidate.
Earlier in the year I thought Rishell had a decent chance for the upset. With a couple good breaks she still might have a longshot chance. Her problem is that Miller is a pretty decent down to earth guy. With the exception of the illegal immigration issue, he is not a rabid conservative like she wants to paint him.
The sad thing for her is that even if she does win, she will be a despised delegate for how nasty she let this race become.
I saw a guy next to the Coverstone 7-11 this morning wearing a workshirt with the words, “Metropolitan Field Associates” on the back.
@ Advocator:
LOL!
No surprise, when I had a Rishell Campaign guy come by my house in August, he mentioned he was from California. We talked and it was quite clear he was some guy they dragged in who had no clue about the area.
Check any Republican’s campaign and I’m sure you’ll find the same thing. This is not at all unusual.
There is nothing more helpful than an opponent who makes as many poor choices as Rishell. Be careful you don’t criticize her tactics too much that she actually does something effectively.
I think all tax write-offs and campaign reports that show actual expense should have receipts. None should be allowed by law or “claimed” were they involve any percentage of use as “personal” property. That ia an affront on any taxpayer who can’t make these personal claims, “write-offs”, because we as taxpayers have to pay for her writeoff expenses.
Michael,
I think you might be confused about the purpose of Ms. Rishell’s reports. Her campaign decisions have no affect on her taxes. When she “donates” the use of her personal car to her campaign, she doesn’t get to reduce her taxes by that amount. She personally gets no benefits from anything on her report.
The importance of the padded report is that Ms. Rishell is trying to make it look like she has more money than she actually does. If she can claim that she has out raised Delegate Miller by 2:1 (which she hasn’t), that will make her look like a strong opponent, which in turn attract more money.
It is dishonest, but does not harm us as tax payers. Unless, of courser, it works.
[…] That’s an impressive margin for a challenger against a strong incumbent. Of course, as has been documented here before, Rishell is fond of padding her numbers. If we take out salaries she didn’t pay, rent her staff […]