July 16, 2006
Sunday campaign finance report update

Via email from his campaign manager, Shane Sklar's report has been amended to show $118K cash on hand, not $113K. He still trails Ron Paul by a fair amount, but Paul's own fundraising prowess has not been too impressive. Also according to Sklar's campaign, Paul had over $700K cash on hand at this time in 2000, instead of the $395K he has now. It's costing him more to raise the dough, and he's not getting as much of a response as he once did.

Question: What in the world is former CD02 Rep. Jim Turner doing with over a million dollars in cash on hand? I suppose he could be saving it for a Senate run in 2008 against John Cornyn, but man, some of that money could do a whole lot of good this year if it were spread around strategically. You want to get a whole bunch of activists on your side early on for that race, Jim, you think about that.

While we're on the subject, what in the world is retiring State Sen. Ken Armbrister doing with his $1.1 million treasure chest? Unlike Turner, there's no indication I'm aware of that Armbrister might have his sights on another elected office (there was a rumor that he might be appointed to something by Governor Perry, but I'm not finding anything on that via Google right now). What's the rule for this sort of thing - is he required to disburse this cash in some fashion by a certain date, or is it his to keep? That's another pot of money that could do a lot of good for the Ds, if Armbrister cares about such things.

Henry Cuellar has $50K in his kitty. As an unchallenged incumbent, that would have been fine. Now, with the possibility that he could face an opponent in an open priary race in November, or worse yet get thrown into a district with Henry Bonilla and his two million bucks, I'm thinking he's going to be a very busy fundraiser in the coming weeks.

Pete Sessions has $881K on hand, down from the million plus he had on March 31. Still a big lead over Will Pryor, just not quite as big as it was before.

Still no news on Tom DeLay. He's gonna drag that out till the last minute, I guess.

UPDATE: Juanita has some news on DeLay's FEC filing. Still no word on available cash, however.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on July 16, 2006 to Election 2006 | TrackBack
Comments

Yeah Turner's had that money for a while now.

I think, and this is purely speculation here, that he was waiting around for the Supreme Court decision. The amazing thing though is that he still pulled in $30k in three months.

Steve Wolens is still sitting on a pile of money too. About $1 mil.

And I think the rumor you're referring to was that Armbrister was going to be named Perry's Chief of Staff in Jan. '07.

Posted by: Cincinnatus on July 16, 2006 6:46 PM