{"id":10730,"date":"2018-06-04T07:00:11","date_gmt":"2018-06-04T11:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=10730"},"modified":"2018-06-03T15:03:34","modified_gmt":"2018-06-03T19:03:34","slug":"self-financing-by-moco-candidates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=10730","title":{"rendered":"Self-Financing by MoCo Candidates"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

Businessman David Blair is being criticized for contributing $1.9 million to his campaign for County Executive<\/a>.\u00a0 Council Member Marc Elrich, who is also running for Executive, told the Post<\/a>, \u201cDavid Blair can use money to commission polls and then create an image of himself based on poll results\u2026 We\u2019ve had enough of buying images and elections.\u201d\u00a0 That leads us to a question.<\/p>\n

How have other big self-funders done in MoCo?<\/p>\n

The chart below shows all MoCo-based candidates since the 2006 cycle who have self-financed at least $200,000 in an election.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Notice something?\u00a0 Only one of these folks won the election in which they self-financed at least $200,000: Congressman John Delaney.<\/p>\n

Why did so many of these self-funders lose?\u00a0 Here are a few reasons applying to various races.<\/p>\n

They ran in the wrong district.<\/u><\/p>\n

This might be the biggest reason Total Wine co-owner David Trone lost the Congressional District 8 race despite massively outspending the winner, Jamie Raskin.\u00a0 The odds were long that CD8, with its dark blue enclaves of Takoma Park, Downtown Silver Spring, Kensington and Chevy Chase, would elect an alcohol salesman over a progressive, brainy and likeable college professor.\u00a0 Trone is much better off in CD6 with its more moderate voters.\u00a0 Similarly, real estate developer Josh Rales was no match for long-time Congressman Ben Cardin and former Congressman and NAACP President Kweisi Mfume in a statewide U.S. Senate primary.<\/p>\n

They challenged an incumbent.<\/u><\/p>\n

Dana Beyer and Amie Hoeber had uphill battles running against incumbents.\u00a0 Hoeber\u2019s entry on this list deserves an asterisk because her committee funding did not include $3.8 million in outside spending by her husband<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Their message wasn\u2019t great.<\/u><\/p>\n

CD8 candidate Kathleen Matthews had a very generic message<\/a> primarily targeted at women.\u00a0 District 20 House candidate Jonathan Shurberg\u2019s message was indistinguishable from the other candidates in his race, some of whom were endorsed by Raskin and had the Apple Ballot.\u00a0 District 19 Senator Mike Lenett ran one of the most negative campaigns in MoCo history against the man who went on to defeat him, Delegate Roger Manno.\u00a0 Lenett\u2019s Holocaust mailer<\/a> was a killer mistake in the last days of the race.<\/p>\n

They motivated the other side.<\/u><\/p>\n

One veteran of Raskin\u2019s congressional campaign told us, \u201cWe had a motto.\u00a0 You can outspend us but you will not outwork us!\u201d\u00a0 Raskin\u2019s door-knockers were dwarfed by Trone\u2019s army but they were well-trained and highly motivated on his behalf.\u00a0 (This was evident by their comparative performances at your author\u2019s door!)\u00a0 In the end, true-believer volunteers proved more effective than more numerous hirelings.<\/p>\n

Delaney was the exception because he ran in a district that fit a center-left businessman, his main Democratic opponent took the election for granted, Republican incumbent Roscoe Bartlett was on his last legs and the district was gerrymandered to elect a Democrat.\u00a0 But there was more: in addition to his self-funding, Delaney raised $2 million in outside money during his first win in 2012.\u00a0 Most of his fundraising in his next two wins came from others and not himself.<\/p>\n

There is no question that self-financing capacity is an advantage.\u00a0 But little in MoCo\u2019s recent political history supports the notion that elections here can be outright bought.\u00a0 If Blair wins, it won\u2019t just be because of money.\u00a0 As one of the wisest MoCo election observers we know told us recently, \u201cYou know, the reason self-funders usually lose is because they have a crappy (or no) message. \u00a0But when they have a concise message\u2026 look out!\u201d<\/p>\n

Disclosure: The Executive candidate we are supporting, Roger Berliner, is not self-funding his race.\u00a0 If he did that, his wife would kill him!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. Businessman David Blair is being criticized for contributing $1.9 million to his campaign for County Executive.\u00a0 Council Member Marc Elrich, who is also running for Executive, told the Post, \u201cDavid Blair can use money to commission polls and then create an image of himself based on poll results\u2026 We\u2019ve had enough of … Continue reading Self-Financing by MoCo Candidates<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,138],"tags":[1545,1541,1938,1778,912],"class_list":["post-10730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-campaign-finance","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-campaign-finance","tag-david-blair","tag-david-trone","tag-john-delaney"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2N4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10730"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10733,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10730\/revisions\/10733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}