Who got paid: tracking down where the campaign $$$ went
Over the next week or two I will be researching and publishing where the largest chunks of campaign money went in 2008, the consultants, media buyers, printers and pollsters who — no matter how their clients did at the ballot box — won by bringing home the bacon.
I’ll start with a look at the Tampa Bay U.S. congressional races, and our beginning point is the District 9 race between incumbent Republican Gus BIlirakis and Democratic challenger Bill Mitchell.
BIlirakis raised $1.3 million and spent $922,000, according to FEC campaign finance reports filed through mid-October, the latest available.
Media consultant Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm of Alexandria, Va., (the same folks who brought us those the Vern Buchanan TV ads) did Bilirakis’ television production and buying, at a total tab of nearly $172,000. EM Campaigns, Randy Enwright’s national consulting firm in Tallahassee that has strong connections into both the state GOP and Jeb!, was paid $16,000. (Enwright was political director of Fred Thompson’s slow-motion train-wreck of a presidential effort.) The The Catalyst Group RW, LLC, out of D.C. was paid $10,000 for fund raising and fundraising events.
On the direct mail side, the work went to Ponte Vedra Beach over near Jacksonville, with Sam Van Voorhis’ Majority Strategies getting $42,000 in fees and printing costs. (For those with long or conspiratorial memories, Voorhis was caught up in an investigation into kickbacks in Ohio politics, but the Department of Justice dropped the probe and no charges were filed. Some have suggested that the probe was dropped as part of partisan meddling in the Alberto Gonzalez DOJ.)
Pollster The Tarrance Group made $10,000.
Locally, Mark Proctor’s MPA Consulting out of Brandon was paid $4,000 ($1,000 a month). Sunrise Consulting of Trinity in Pasco County got $33,000 for consulting and direct mail.
Over on the Democratic side, Mitchell’s top paydays went to D.C.-based media consultant Laguens Kully Klose Partners ($14,000), pollster Momentum Analysis $22,500, Fairfax, Va.-based Media Strategies for TV advertising ($75,800), and direct mail firm The Strategy Group ($43,000).
Mitchell raised $146,000 and spent $249,000, leaving a $100,000 debt, according to FEC records.
