Lost in the latest round of campaign finance reports (and no doubt he wishes it would stay lost) was the news that Republican Scott Gessler raised a measly $12,800 in his bid for Secretary of State.
Gessler did manage to spend $21,569 (including a whopping $16,000 on various “consultants”), leaving him with just $6,336 cash on hand. Gessler is apparently hot on the trail of CD-4 Republicans Tom Lucero and Diggs Brown in the race to see who can bankrupt their campaigns first.
With Republicans waging expensive primaries for both State Treasurer and Governor, there’s not going to be a lot of cash left on the table for candidates like Gessler. Unless he’s got a lot of personal money to put into his campaign, Gessler looks unlikely to mount a real challenge to incumbent Democrat Bernie Buescher — and he may have spent his way into a GOP primary as well. Certainly no Republican thinking of running for SOS will be scared off by Gessler’s meager fundraising.
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I like Scott but he spent to much. COH is so imporant. Right?
Running for statewide office or Congress is not rocket surgery. You raise as much money as possible, and you save 90% of it for TV. There is absolutely no reason to be paying $16,000 for consultants if you’re only raising $12,800. Gessler is giving the impression that he really doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Any campaign worth its salt will plan from general election day backwards, including a budget. Once that task is completed anyone with common sense can see that you save almost all of your money for media.
Much of the work done by consultants can be accomplished successfully by campaign staff. Too many candidates hire too many consultants who in the end get paid for telling the candidate the obvious.
And sadly, sometimes it only carries credibility if it comes from someone they’re paying too much.
At the other end of the spectrum, some candidates seem to get it right off.
All candidates are different.
As are all consulting jobs. Not all jobs involve simply telling candidates the obvious. Some jobs involve a good deal of spatial and numerical analysis, and that takes fairly specialized software, data, and skills that not everyone, particularly your average campaign volunteer, has at his or her disposal.
Other jobs involve being on call 24/7 to anticipate and/or respond to attacks on very short notice. That takes a commitment that someone who is volunteering a few hours a week in his/her spare time can make.
Don’t be so quick to slam consultants. They can play many different valuable roles in a campaign. If they’re worth hiring, however, they too recognize that they can’t bleed the campaign at the expense of media.
It’s still early. Let’s see what Gessler raises and spends in the next quarter.
Then he ought to fire them.
I’ve run campaigns and based on that experience I agree with you that some consultants, including media, polling/targeting are important, especially to a major campaign but I’ve hired and been disappointed in consultants from out of state who in the end really don’t know anything about Colorado and can only advise a campaign by giving general advice at a very high price. They certainly weren’t bad people, they just weren’t worth the price tag.
You said “much of the work” in your post–not “all”–and I understood what you were saying.
I didn’t read it as a slam on all consultants.
The one point you were absolutely right about is that consultants frequently need to tell candidates the obvious.
Then you shouldn’t be hiring them. If you spend all of your money on consultants, at the end of the day, what was the point?
Consulting expenses are frequently front-loaded in the budget, media expenses are rear-loaded.
Has Obama and the Dem controlled Congress put our nation in debt in just six months? What are you kidding DavidThi808?
Cleaning up messes is expensive. With that said, I think they’re doing a pretty good job.