Fundraising and the spending that it enables are important aspects of political campaigns. This has especially been the case in the heated contest for Shelby County District Attorney General between Republican incumbent Amy Weirich and Democratic challenger Steve Mulroy.
Claims concerning the respective campaign kitties have risen to the fore lately in several public ways. The subject has figured in debates, in news analyses, and in TV attack ads.
A recent issue of The Tennessee Journal, a prestigious statewide political weekly, recently published breakdowns of the money raised and spent by both candidates.
The Journal gave Weirich’s fundraising totals for the 2nd quarter of the year as $130,400, her spending for the period as $240,400, and her cash on hand as $361,000. Mulroy’s 2nd quarter receipts were given as $279,000, his spending as $194,000 and his cash on hand as $159,000.
In either case, that ain’t hay.
But a discrepancy of sorts has arisen. In a debate between the two at a Kiwanis Club luncheon two weeks ago, Weirich made the declaration, “I don’t have any out-of-state donors, and I’m very proud of that fact.” Days later, as a counterpoint, a TV ad appeared in which her campaign made much of the fact that Mulroy had received substantial out-of-state contributions.
She evidently was in error. The Journal’s breakdown of her receipts assigned $1,600 of it (the equivalent of one maxed-out private donor) as coming from out of state.
And the Mulroy campaign has done its own breakdown of out-of-state contributions to the Weirich campaign and arrayed the results in a spreadsheet showing 17 contributions from a total of 10 separate donors in the states of Arkansas, California, Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Oregon. The contributors include retired people, heads of businesses, and, in at least one case, an apparent relative. Their contributions bridge the incumbent DA’s primary and general campaign, in amounts ranging from $125 to $1,600. And they total $13,200.
Basically, this is a needle in the totality of her somewhat voluminous campaign haystack. But it’s not $1,600. And it’s not zero.
Interesting. But not as much so, all things considered, as the revelation (in the Daily Memphian) that Weirich — whose office is prosecuting controversial media shock jock Thaddeus Matthews, the “Cussin’ Pastor,” for various misdemeanors — was a recent interviewee on Matthews’ talk show and calls him “Buddy.”
Newswise, that’s not zero, either.
