Late Money Causes Flood Of Campaign Mailers
By Greg L | 2 November 2007 | Prince William County | 22 Comments
Here’s what happens when candidates for office have more campaign money than they’ve ever seen before. From the Potomac News:
Service was mainly affected in the 22192 ZIP code where postal customer reported Friday that she got four campaign mailers from Prince William Chairman Corey A. Stewart R-at large; two from Sharon Pandak, his opponent; two from Faisal Gill, who is running for the 51st House District; seven from Paul Nichols, who is Gill’s opponent; one from George Barker, who is running for the state senate in the 39th District and six from James K. “Jay” O’Brien, the incumbent in the 39th District, for a total of 22 mailers.
Seven pieces in one day from Paul Nichols? Holy smokes!
This is especially a problem when all the money seems to dump in at the end of the cycle, and candidates have to struggle to find ways to spend it. Campaigns typically set up a spending plan at the beginning to use the money they expect to get effectively, doing a carefully chosen number of mail pieces, polls and calls. There’s always more that can be done, but at some point — especially when lead times start to bump up towards election day — you hit a saturation point. Sure, you can do another mail piece, but would you want to? Probably not.
Some of these mailers are independent expenditures by other organizations, and campaigns can’t control when these drop. Some of these mailers have actually been held up in the pipeline, and mail houses may not be spacing these out, out of a concern that they might not make it into mailboxes before election day. I can’t imagine things are so bad that campaigns are sending out so much, so late, unless it’s just a means to spend money as quickly as possible on somethin, anything at all, in hopes that the marginal benefit of that expenditure will outweigh the negative reaction people might have to getting twenty-two pieces of campaign literature stuffed into their mailbox in one day.
Late money is largely wasted money. It still looks good in a campaign finance report, but if a campaign can’t actually use it wisely, this is a complete waste. I guess this proves that having money doesn’t make you smart.
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We received five pieces today. Two From Jackson Miller, one from a realtor group that is supporting Jackson. One from Chuck C, and one from Jeanette.
I have noticed that Jeanette has stopped spreading lies about Jackson and has decided to highlight what she feels are her better qualities.
7 pieces from Paul Nichols is only one more than Jay. After the lies that Faisal and his camp have been spreading, of course this has to be done. Remember on Tuesday, vote Chris Royse, Vote Jay O’Brien - principled men for tough times.
I am experiencing nearly the same thing here in Fairfax City.
JMDD must be exhausting the Postal Workers. When I turn on the
TV I am bombarded with her ads. When this is over next week,
perhaps I should mail them back to her and suggest she sell them
to a Green Recycling Center. If she doesnt, at least the trash
collectors will be busy and earning thier pay. BTW, Im a Republican
who has had it with her trying to “out Pelosi Nancy.”l
Four in one day from Corey Stewart?!? Holy smokes!
Fourty-eight pieces in Manassas City over the past
two weeks ( five yesterday). Ten or more each from
Colgan, Miller, FitzSimmonds and Rishell - basically
informing us they sit at the right hand of God
and their opponent is a spawn of satan. Golly,
who would have known?
Plus two pieces from McQuigg, a modest little
postcard from Beauchamp, and nothing yet from
Ryland. This is what I grew up - one or two mailings
during the election cycle - sell yourself, but never
mention the other candidates.
After the election frenzy, we should all stop and reflect
on what this mass mailings, robo-call arms race means
to the process and to good government. How much
does it cost? Are the only viable nominees either
(A) very wealthy or (B) willing to suck up to those who are?
Where do we go from here?
Over the last week we’ve received at least 25 mailers (as many as 5 in one day), the majority from Colgan (paid for by the Dem Party), followed by Fiztsimmonds, Marshall, Beauchamp, and McQuigg. What’s interesting is that within a couple of days of the Registrar’s office receiving my son’s absentee ballott request, we started getting them in HIS name also.
I received a very WEIRD letter from a person, signature unreadable, about Rishell stating the reason why we should vote for her is because, she is bright and personable and …. the strongest reason is that she is our “neighbor”. She buys her groceries at the local market, drives the same roads and pays the same taxes. Very weird letter. One of the weirdest things I’ve seen.
“lies that Faisal and his camp have been spreading,” John Light?
There aren’t enough hours in the day for Faisal to catch up to the lies that have been told about him, here and elsewhere, by you and others.
Does it occur to anyone that no campaign would intentionally spend their money in a way to send more than 1 peice a day?
Does it occur to ANYBODY that 22 peices in a day just MIGHT be the sign of a LAZY or BIASED Post office, post office workers or postal carrier?
The fact that you immediately assume that campaigns who spend so much time and effort rasing money would waste it as opposed to assuming that the U.S. POST office might be a little lax calls into question your judgment.
ddpdrinker said on 3 Nov 2007 at 9:39 am:
I received a very WEIRD letter from a person, signature unreadable, about Rishell stating the reason why we should vote for her is because, she is bright and personable and …. the strongest reason is that she is our “neighbor”. She buys her groceries at the local market, drives the same roads and pays the same taxes. Very weird letter. One of the weirdest things I’ve seen.
I received the same letter - very wierd indeed…..
corr: weird
Manassas City — five more today — this is crazy
counter productive over-kill — most folks aren’t even
reading them at this point.
- The USPS, under some strain, is doing darn well
99% of the time. Under law, political mail is “hot”
and must be delivered PDQ.
- My take is Jackson Miller will win 55% to 45%, but,
if it is close and Jeanette is defeated, then she can
thank the DPV mailings that lied about Jackson.
Wild charges and BS may excite the base on both
sides, but the moderate middle (i.e. margin of victory)
hate attack ads — especially obviously wrong ones.
The DPV spent some major $$ only to hurt Rishell
far more than they helped.
- The DPV didn’t do Chuck Colgan much good either,
but he will win 52-48%. Senator Colgan is one of the
good stand up guys in government. He has been
there for us — we will be there for him.
Colgan and Miller — The Winning Team on Nov. 6th.
Big Dog,
I think you might just be right there. Any other calls?
If you are thinking of voting for Faisal Gill, read “Infiltration” by Paul Sperry. pages 295 to 300 first. Then you will know not to vote for him.
And six from the Sen Obrien, the incumbant???? Darn, you would think voters would know who is already since he is supposedly serving the residents of his district. Stunnnnning. Absolutely stunning.
Oooooooooo, and not to mention the TV and radio air time that Faisal brought upon himself recently — as a campaign move, how dumb was that??
:) …but it sure got the word out, and to think, he did it to himself…:)
well, Nichol’s paid phone solicitors aren’t doing him a whole lot of good either. they don’t know his name! i have had two, in the last two days, who have asked me to cast my ballot on 11/6 for Paul Nicholson. today i tried to nicely correct the young man and give him the correct name. he told me i didn’t know what i was talking about. i very politely agreed that he might be right, and allowed that i was voting for Gill, so it really didn’t matter.
Today, 2 flyers from Jeannemarie, and 2 letters. Two flyers from Chap and one flyer for school board. And 2 phones calls about Gary Baise, one talking about illegals and Connolly’s welcome mat.
Dolph,
Besides Colgan and Miller wins, add an easy
call for Hill and a real wild call hunch - Ryland. Tnink he
will take Manassas City - but not real sure about the
county. (From a pure job standpoint, Clerk of the Court
is the best position in local politics — 130K+ per year
with great benefits, an EIGHT year term, 9-5 M thru F
and little controversy. A Delegate in Va. makes under
18K - gets beat up on immigration, roads, taxes, etc. -
and has to avoid defeat at the polls every TWO years.
In fact, earlier in the year, I suggested Miller
for Clerk of the Court. Know he could have followed well
in the tradition of Dave Mabie).
I have gotten 22 pieces of “junk” and about 20 of them were downright nasty. He takes a lot of credit for doing nothing and making it sound like he is important. I will probably get some more tomorrow, but he is a tad too late - I voted a couple weeks ago for Chris.
The junk pieces came from Jeff Frederick.
I saw the movie “the seige” this weekend If Faisel Gill has been involved in any decietful organization (AML?) that has any connections like those portrayed in the movie, that would be reason enough for me to not vote for him.
The religious group radicalism problem is not going to go away in America. It is only going to get worse as more and more radical right religious groups advocate only for what is best for the people of their religious faith. Unless we make these people and organizations “Private only” and make it “Illegal” to be a part of or elected into government positions, we will see these religious right orgainzations continue to vote ONLY for their own kind, until they can do what was done in Pakistan recently…suspend the Constitution and create a military led religious movement coup. Think that can’t happen in America? Think again, it has happened to a lot of democratic countries as soon as the radical population size reaches a size to effectively militarize, and vote their own people into public offices. This country is in for a lot of trouble with these gender, racial, ethnic and religious radical groups in the future.
Hillary and other democratic leaders are going to help them do it too!