Wayne Slater takes aim at Rick's fundraising over the years...

Wayne Slater must have felt that he owed Kay's team one to make up for his article about Kay's exaggerated income tax claims a few weeks back. Today in the Dallas Morning News, there is a peculiar article with a headline readymade for a Kay attack ad...

[Texas Gov. Rick Perry takes Washington money - when it's for his campaign]

...about Rick's fundraising (link). Excerpt follows...

Perry has collected $2.7 million from Washington since becoming governor – four times more than Hutchison's $670,000 from Washington during the same period, a Dallas Morning News analysis finds.

[SNIP]

Hutchison campaign manager Rick Wiley said it's more evidence that Perry likes to bash Washington but has no problem taking its money – except for $555 million in federal unemployment money, which the governor says has strings attached.

"One has to wonder what kind of strings he's attached to the fundraising haul he had from Washington, D.C.," said Wiley.

Perry campaign spokesman Mark Miner said the governor's critique of Washington is limited to political spending, not political contributors.

"He's talking about elected officials who vote for earmarks, bailouts and out-of-control spending – that's what he's referring to when he talks about the problems of Washington," Miner said.

What is sort of strange about the article is that the headline screams about Rick taking Washington money for his campaign, but then it explains that Kay has taken more Washington dollars as a proportion of her overall fundraising (link). More excerpts follow...

Texas is the source of more than 90 percent of both candidates' campaign contributions.

Their Washington money, as a share of their totals, was comparable – 4 percent of Perry's donations and 5.7 percent of Hutchison's.

Perry has raised $66 million since 1991, fueled by two contested races in Texas. The Republican senator raised $11.6 million during the period in which she had re-election race.

Perry's totals include large contributions from Washington-based Republican committees in his 2002 and 2006 elections.

In his last race, the governor got $1 million from the Republican Governors Association in two checks, the second one a few days before the election when he traveled to Washington to receive it personally.

So Rick took 4% of his money from Washington, and the overwhelming bulk of that "Washington money" came from two national GOP groups: 1) a million from the Republican Governor's Association, an organization he headed up and raised millions of dollars for, and 2) 750K from the Republican National State Elections Committee. Hardly "Washington insider" groups there.

Also, are the fundraising figures for Rick and Kay even an apples to apples comparison? Kay never had a supercharged and heated campaign race, while Rick had more than one of them. Rick as a candidate in a state race in Texas was not limited by federal contribution limits, which is why he could take a million dollars from the Republican Governor's Association, while Kay was limited per contribution which is why she took much smaller amounts from many more interest groups.

GOP 12 agrees that the article is "deceptive" (link). Excerpt follows...

Expect the Kay Bailey Hutchison camp to run with the line.

But it's a bit deceptive.

Yes, in an absolute sense, Texas Gov. Rick Perry's raised more money from Washington than Kay Bailey Hutchison -- $2.7 million since becoming governor vs. Hutchison's $670,000 in that same time frame.

But that number's a bit deceptive when considering Texas state campaigns don't have limits on individual donations, while federal campaigns do. Additionally, Hutchison's share of donations from D.C. was 5.7%, while Perry's was 4%.

I have to say, the whole article is not Wayne Slater's best work, nor the most credible work from the headline writer. It's just not really an apples to apples comparison, so saying one has more dollars than the other (Rick over Kay), or one has a higher number of donations from Washington insiders than the other (Kay over Rick), or one has a higher percentage of donations from Washington (Kay over Rick) is not really very informative. Moreover, the headline writer is obviously trying to sell newspapers, because Rick's 4% of money raised coming from Washington almost sounds like a margin of error in a poll. It's pretty tiny. The other thing about this article that seems odd... it was not an analysis of any new information. There has been no new fundraising information released for months now. I guess this is a good, or bad, example of what happens when newspaper staffs get slashed...