Spending Campaign Cash: TX-22 Democratic Candidates

Elise Hu's post at the Texas Tribune about Kesha Rogers, Democratic nominee for TX-22, got me to thinking about what each of the three Democratic candidates in the Primary raised and spent. I had been saying to anyone who would listen that Rogers did not run a real campaign - no TV, no mail, no emails, no phone calls to voters - nothing but a bunch of sign waving by the Johnson Space Center. Hu confirmed that, saying she had spent less than $5000 total on her campaign.

I checked out the Federal Elections Commission website to see what the three Democratic candidates for TX-22 raised and spent. Here's what I found, through 2/10/10:

Kesha Rogers
Raised $6088 total. Spent $4701.83. There was a lot of printing of flyers and posters on her last expenditure report, with zero spent on voter contact. Big surprise. She advocates invading the British Empire. I've recapped some of the crazy here, along with the Democratic response.

Doug Blatt
Blatt out raised Rogers with a whopping $7378.92. He spent $3964.25. His last expenditure report included $330 for postage (for what, I wonder), nearly $1000 for yard signs (I never saw one anywhere), around $900 for advertising (including Facebook ads . . .not sure I ever saw one) and his filing fee ($3125) with the Texas Democratic Party. Blatt was the only real Democrat in the race, albeit an ineffective one.

John Wieder (or Fred Wieder or Freddie Wierder or Minister Wieder - I'm not sure what he goes by)
Well, first of all, he got a failure to file letter from the FEC on 2/19/10. He filed on 2/22/10. By that date, he had raised $5024 total for his campaign, and spent $3696. On the period covered by that report, his only expenditure was a $777 loan repayment to himself.  This guy is a tea bagger, and not a real Democrat. This is the hobby he had listed on his website: "My Hobbies - Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and later someone killed him, but I want to free the unborn Americans from murder inside the womb."

For anyone who thinks Democratic voters in TX-22 had any information about who to vote for in the congressional race, my response is "um, no they didn't, and the campaign finance reports prove it." There was basically zero real voter contact going on to impact the choice of Democrats in this large congressional district. There were some exceptions - a few of us searched around for information on the internet. A few others saw Kesha waving posters around on the street in Clear Lake. A handful of voters saw these candidates at Democratic club events.

As I've said before, I believe Rogers won because she is a woman and an African American. Being first on the ballot may have helped her get a few extra percentage points. She did not win because she appealed to young people or Obama haters. Bottom line: No one spent enough money to influence anyone, but someone had to win the Democratic Primary for TX-22 and that person was Kesha Rogers.