Fattah fund-raising (The Next Mayor)

Since we are all talking about who raises what from whom today...

Late today, Chaka Fattah released his fund-raising totals since January. There was no need for the candidate to do that today, but hey, the journalists of Philly'll take it -- personally, I would rather them tell me often how much they've raised.

Fattah, who raised $1.6 million in his three committees in 2006, raised an additional $748,614 between Jan 1 and March 26. He now has nearly $600,000 cash on hand in his Fattah for Mayor account, the statement said.

"I have seen impressive support from Philadelphians from diverse social and economic backgrounds, and donations ranging from thousands of dollars to just a few," Fattah said in the statement. "But at the end of the day, this is an election, not an auction, and the biggest contribution Philadelphians can make is to support my bid for the Democratic nomination for Mayor on May 15th."

Again, he didn't have to announce his fund-rasing totals -- there is a deadline today for campaign disclosure, but it's only for candidates for statewide office and PACs that give to them. His spokesman later said the campaign "jumped the gun" in the release, but added, "we are proud of the support we've received and we look forward to receiving even more support going forward."

That "more support" may be important. $600,000 is not a ton of money, certainly when stacked up against Knox's seemingly endless ad budget -- and when you consider that Nutter, Brady, Knox and Evans all have ads on the air now.

(edited to add) Here's a reprint of the final version of the press release that was mailed out yesterday.

Comments (6)

Max:

They raised $748,000, but they spent more than $540,000 in less than 3 months without even being on TV. It's one thing to only have $600,000 on hand to spend on TV, but if they continue at their current burn rate only about $300,000 of that would be available for TV. And then how are they going to pay for that monstrous GOTV effort that they are planning to run?

Another interesting point is that less than $9000 (just over 1%) came in contributions of $250 or less. Doesn't seem like they're getting a lot of grassroots donor support.

Posted by Max | April 4, 2007 12:08 AM

Dave

Lawyers can be pretty expensive. I wonder if they're betting the farm on getting the contribution limits lifted.

Posted by Dave | April 4, 2007 12:22 AM

Good point. I just went back and checked on the lawyer fees. They paid more than $35,000 to Montgomery, McCracken (the firm that the lawyer who is arguing the campaign finance case works for) over those 3 months. That's in addition to the more than $80k the exploratory committee paid the same law firm. That's over $115,000 in lawyer fees. Of which, I'm guessing most went toward the goal of getting rid of campaign finance laws.

Wow.

Posted by Max | April 4, 2007 12:51 AM

Observer:

I see no way that the PA Supreme Court hears this case before May 15th. Fattah has lost this battle. He can still win the mayoral race, but if he really wants to make a difference he'd be better off focusing on doing something with the Democratic majority in Congress. Isn't there a war that needs ending? All those billions being spent in Iraq sure would help cities like Philly.

Posted by Observer | April 4, 2007 9:34 AM

Patricio:

5 candidates, the person who has raised the least (also spending it the most foolishly)is not likely to win.

Davenport doesn't care and lacks the money and desire to win.

Posted by Patricio | April 4, 2007 11:05 AM

jones:

Just saw Fattah at Tritone,15th and south, he totally lost my vote. Rude, angry and obnoxious, were just a few of the ways he came off. Why is he a front runner with no money?

Posted by jones | April 6, 2007 1:30 PM

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