Thursday, February 25, 2010

Is Kay hoarding money, or running out of it?

Rick is aiming to win without a runoff... Kay is said to be hoarding her cash for a runoff (link). Excerpt follows...
AUSTIN — While U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is hoarding money for a possible Republican runoff, campaign finance reports show Gov. Rick Perry has increased his spending on television commercials in hopes of winning Tuesday's primary outright.

[SNIP]

Hutchison cut her weekly TV advertising buy on Feb. 18 to just $1 million for the campaign's home stretch, while Perry purchased $2.6 million worth of TV time. She had outspent him on TV in the previous three weeks — $5.3 million to his $5 million — but polls showed her ads had not made a major dent in his support among likely voters.
There is a rumor out there about this... and it is spreading like wild fire. Personally I have no insight other than what I have heard which is that Kay has done a lot of mail pieces and a lot of other things which may not yet appear on their reports... which means their consultant(s) is/are holding back bills as long as possible to help her out...

Burka fans the flames of that rumor (link). Excerpt follows...
A source close to the Perry campaign e-mailed me that Perry raised $1.2 million in a 24-hour Internet fundraising effort yesterday. The campaign continues to circulate the rumor that the Hutchison treasury is running out of money.
A frequent Burka commenter named Cow Droppings who is known for being extremely pro-Rick adds...

So KBH has done nine attack mailers and only spent half a million according to her report on mail?

Let’s see: I will charitably grant her the low cost of 50 cents per piece (though unlikely b/c you know Sullivan is getting a mark-up.) That’s one million pieces of mail divided by nine meaning her mail universe is only 111,111 households per piece in a primary with more than a million voters? Yeah, right. They have easily more than $3 mil in mail bills to pay. Can you say broke?

This is Perry spin, but that doesn't mean it is not true. I have a feeling there are some major outstanding bills for Kay... it doesn't really add up that she would not be out money based on the evidence. Direct mail is expensive... very very expensive... and I have not personally received any that I know of since my mail is being held until I get back to Texas on Monday... but I have heard about the mail and heard that is is pretty vicious... and peeps were getting 2 or 3 or 4 pieces on one single day... which as we all know is very ineffective and just looks desperate... Kay surely spent more than half a million on direct mail... how much more I don't know but it could easily be into the millions... which does mean there are bills being held back to avoid an article about how she is completely out of money... which would further depress her voters...

Rick's peeps have allegedly done no direct mail at all... which seems risky but it also seems to be paying off... has anyone seen any of Rick's direct mail?

My verdict... Kay is skating by and is almost out of money if not in the hole... we may wake up on March 3 and see that her campaign is a million in debt unless she has some serious checks coming in to pay for all of that direct mail... then again if she is cutting back on television and radio maybe she will just break even and spare Kay the indignity of a big "retire my debt tour"... let's hope... we need to be fighting back against the the well funded media darling Bill White not harnessing the Republican money establishment toward paying down Kay's campaign overspending.

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