White gets to a big fundraising start

I was pretty sure Bill White would be able to raise a ton of money for whatever office he wanted to run for next. So far, that's true.

Houston Mayor Bill White raised more than $640,000 in his first 15 days campaigning for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison, according to a federal campaign finance report filed Saturday.

White, who announced his campaign in December, also donated $120,287 to his effort and began this year with $737,000 in the bank. All the money raised by White for his Democratic campaign came from individuals.

The only other Democrat in the prospective race so far, former Comptroller John Sharp, did not create a campaign committee until Jan. 2. He will not report any fund-raising numbers until April.

That ought to be an interesting comparison. I have no idea if there's enough room for two high-profile Democratic Senate candidates to raise the kind of dough they'll need for an election whose date is unknown. Will people tell them to come back when there's a date set? Or will they want to be in on the ground floor and hope to bigfoot the other guy out of this race? Heck if I know, but White's got the early marker down. He's got more cash than anyone else in the race so far. I don't know how much that's ultimately going to help for this particular race, given its dynamic, but it sure can't hurt.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on February 02, 2009 to Election 2010