FINAL NUMBERS FROM THE 50TH
By RHarrison | 14 December 2007 | 50th HOD District | 16 Comments
The last financial reports came out a few days ago from the 2007 election. The final numbers on the race between Jeanette Rishell and Jackson Miller are interesting, if not especially surprising.
Rishell out raised Miller $241,000 to $162,000. 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 didn’t pay for living in her basement and the use of her own car, Rishell’s numbers fall dramatically. Still, she did a good job raising money, especially from sources outside of Virginia.
One interesting note: the Democratic Caucus down in Richmond gave Rishell $5,400 worth of free advice in the last few weeks of the campaign, and over $15,000 overall, which she claimed on her disclosure form as an in-kind contribution. This is another example of padding, but more importantly it is dishonest. There is no way advice from the Democratic Caucus could be worth $15,000.
More interestingly, a number of other Democrats and Democratic PACs gave last-minute money to Rishell. These include Sen. Webb’s PAC ($500), the Democratic Latino Organization of VA ($250), Leadership for Virginia’s Future ($1,000) and Hilda Barg ($300). Based on state party spending patterns and the behavior of the Rishell campaign itself, it looks like they all expected to win this race.
They didn’t. Miller won by just over 20%.
I understand how Rishell could think she was going to win. It doesn’t look like her campaign did much polling late in the election, so she didn’t have good numbers. And I think most politicians are optimistic by nature, or they would never would run in the first place. If you can’t delude yourself into thinking you are going to do well, why would you bother trying?
What I don’t understand is how the Democratic Party, both state and national, could have concluded that this was a competitive race. It was obvious by late September that Rishell had killed her chances with her stupid and dishonest mailings. How could the state Party miss that? Miller was never especially vulnerable. Last year he won by a decent margin (six points) in a very bad Republican year. This year was not as bad for Republicans, Miller was the incumbent, and Manassas is still a Republican town.
Yet for some reason the Rishell received signifigant financial support from her Party in the last two weeks of the campaign. Loyalty is nice, but wasn’t there a better place to spend this money?
Miller, for his part, raised an impressive amount of money. $162,000 is good for a freshman who only had one year to raise it. If we deduct all of Rishell’s unorthodox in-kind contributions, the difference between the two is much lower. A quick analysis of Rishell’s funds shows at least $40,000 in in-kind contributions that other candidates would not have counted. This “money” was not available for the campaign to spend, but it did give a distorted picture of the Rishell campaign’s health.
While I’m sure Rishell used her artificially high numbers to raise money, Miller also used Rishell’s numbers to rally his base, raise money and keep his campaign focused. In real money, Rishell had, not 50% more to spend, but 25% more. That’s still a lot, but not as much as it first appeared.
In the end, Rishell spent a huge amount of money on mailings that cost her support each time she sent them out. She also spent huge amounts of money on high-paid campaign consultants from New York and Connecticut – which may explain why her mailings were so bad. The damage done by these expenses overwhelmed the good door-to-door work she did. Rishell was also harmed by a weak local volunteer base. She relied heavily on volunteers from Arlington and DC throughout the campaign, which a poor substitute for local people who know the community.
To cite one example, over the last weekend of the campaign, the Miller team hit over 3,500 doors using only volunteers from the 50th District. People were knocking on doors in their own neighborhoods. At the same time, Rishell had to hire another consultant, this one from Fairfax, to coordinate her volunteers that weekend, most of whom were not from the district.
Of course, the main reason Miller won is that he is a good candidate. He is honest, hardworking and knows his district. Miller’s strengths were enough to get him elected. It took Rishell’s consultants and their mail to make it a blow-out.
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I don’t know if I’d characterize Jackson as “a strong incumbent,” given that he was only elected a year before to fill an unexpired term. Certainly, he was the superior candidate in many ways: ideologically; temperamentally, etc. But Rishell presents herself well; it’s just when she opens her mouth and expresses her moonbat views that she gets into trouble. But these numbers aren’t unexpected, in light of Jackson’s relative inexperience with only a year in office.
It’s therefore not surprising that Dems would pour money into a seat against a one-year incumbent. What is surprising is that they would do so in a district with the 50th’s demographics and political history.
James,
I understand why the democrats gave Rishell money in August, but by October it was clear Jackson had a solid lead, mostly because people were mad at Rishell. What made the Democrats think another $1,000 could undue the damage caused by the last $1,000, let alone allow Rishell to pull ahead.
Early money I understand, but the late money shows a woeful understanding of the dynamics of this race.
Some thoughts-
- Before we examine the trees, we should step back
and look at the forest — a combined 400K spent on
a campaign that includes the cities and a sliver of PWC?
400K! Wow. Manassas City Council seats have been
recently won with less than 5K being spent. Triple that
to cover the wider area and you are still looking at
15K. Spending is getting out of hand for state contest.
(When PACs etc. give a candidate big $$ - logic
indicates they expect something in return and that
may well not be in the interest of us average citizens.)
- You noted Rishell’s major donors — How about Millers?
- You are right, some of Jeanette’s attack mailings did
cost her votes. Anybody with a bit of common
sense could have told her that - Miller’s weak spot
was support of the “abuser fees”, not phantom
“pay increases”.
-What was the cost per vote for each candidate?
- Finally - 400k!!!!
Take a look at the races the Democrats targeted in NOVA and other areas then compare finances with Rishell. She essentially got nothing. Rishell was NOT a targeted race. Kaine and Warner were droping 20-50K or even more each to the competitive races. Webb was also giving much more to those who were expected to do better. Do you want to see were the Warner, Kaine and the state caucus wasted money? Look no further than Tomer, Day, and Ferguson. Most do not consider these swing or democratic areas for these legislative candidates. Ferguson and Tomer were good candidates with a D beside their name in GOP districts and Bill Day was just plain crazy. I actually heard several dems saying they were sure Day was going to win. What a complete waste of resources in these three races. In two of these three races (Ferguson and Day) the Dems completely outspent the Gop and they still lost by solid margins. That was either very poor spending by Ward Armstrong and company or the Dems had more money than they knew what to do with. I think it was a combination.
Its probably hard to find a candidate more suited for this district than Miller. For the city part of the district he served on the City Council. His kids go to my daughters elementary school where his wife volunteers, and he goes to that huge church on wellington road behind the giant food.
In the county part of the district he is a policeman. As a former LEO I can assure you that (other than maybe a mailman) a beat officer gets to know the community where he is working inside and out, better than anyone.
I have gotten to know him at kids pickup after school. He comes off as a great guy. He convinced me to vote for the first time in several years, and he turnrd me on to this blog. He gets our households vote for years to come.
I got a kick out of Jim Youngs statement that Jeanette Richel presented herself well except when she opened her mouth to express her views. How else do you present yourself? Sorry, I just found that funny.
Rishell came out of the gate sideways on illegal
immigration and overcrowding in her first campaign
and never could correct that due to her base,
campaign staff incompetence, and GOP “attention”.
Not sure, in both elections, that she ever fully realized how
key those issues are to the voters of the 50th.
(400K!!!! combined expenses. Watch out, pretty soon we will
be talking about real money to run for the HOD. And
this is for a two year job paying less than 18K per year.)
Big Dog —
In the age of “targeting” the costs of campaigns are going up because more consultants and vendors have dug in so they must be handed a big piece of the pie. They have become like big government programs in that while they spend loads more money overall, no significant additional dollars and not much more in terms of real services are making it out onto the ground in real grassroots activities real it REALLY COUNTS.
I just can’t believe that the big donors have not yet figured out this giant scam perpetuated by all the political consultants and their wholly owned marketing companies that have a stranglehold all on this “no bid” business. If this was any other type of business, people would be going to jail.
meant….where it REALLY COUNTS (sorry…sent before proofing).
Jeanette would have surely won if it was not for this stupid immigration issue that had quickly risen to the top at the last minute…that is the ONLY reason Jackson Miller won (emphasis on the “ONLY” in case you couldn’t tell)..if Jeanette had made a stronger stance on immigration in the beginning and got it out there to the voters, as I will commend Jackson Miller for doing, the issue would’ve been wiped clear off the slate and much more important issues facing our area would’ve been the key issues, i.e. transportation. Best wishes to him in the future still, and I can’t wait to see the candidate slate in 2 years!
Jeanette couldn’t make a stronger stance on immigration because she SUPPORTS the illegal aliens. She could have been honest and said as much, but then she would have gotten totally demolished by Miller, more than she was. She’s no good as a leader and thank God Jackson won.
Well, Nancy, she is attractive, for a woman of her years.
And RFC, that’s must be some good stuff you’re on.
James Young said, “…But Rishell presents herself well; it’s just when she opens her mouth and expresses her moonbat views that she gets into trouble.”
Wow, now that’s the absolute BEST example of “a pot calling the kettle black” that I’ve EVER seen….:)
Honestly, both candidates were poor options for this area, but the obvious and definite lesser of the two evils was Jeanette and you all will see that when Miller builds up this town so much that we have 1 tree left and the 2 hour traffic you sit in the whole way to work for the next two years, you can thank on account of Miller…happy tailgating!
RFC,
Jackson Miller was elected last year on the immigration issue among others - an issue that didn’t really mature into a make or break election issue until this year. What that means is that Miller was in touch enough with his electorate that he didn’t HAVE to change positions and ape his opponent in a vain attempt to get on the voters’ side. That’s what wins elections, not the lame accusations that passed for Rishell’s attack campaign. Actually Rishell’s came off more like your’s above (Jackson Miller responsible for all the growth in Manassas?!?) No wonder you thought she had a chance.
LIEle,
Jeanette never could’ve CHANGED her stance if she never made a firm one to begin with…no one really knew what her stance was for a while, so therefore it couldn’t have possibly been changed.