Dellinger's deceptive press release

so let's get this straight.

Dellinger had over 400 unique donors from NC in his year-end report.

Besse had under 200 unique donors. (and has less than 20% of Dellinger or Dalton's cash on hand)

Smathers is a great guy, but blew his money on a Beach Boy concert. Now he has $5K on hand.

At the time of the press release in late January, Dellinger released the amount of cash the campaign had as of that day.

Primaries are "sink or swim". You find a strong candidate who can run a stong campaign on their on.

What is yours?

"85% of Republicans are Democrats who don't know what's going on." -Robert Kennedy, Jr.

I Vote for Honest Candidates posted an anti-Dellinger comment and identical blog entry.

Be Patriotic Vote Democrat and Dr. Frank Lives disagree vehemently. (Are its contents inaccurate?)

Robert P is pissed and got snarky with Dr. Frank who has gotten vehement and snarky about anti-Delliger stuff in the past.

I think (was it Betsy who posted this?) that someone has been posting as different names . . . Is this the case where she caught them and then they threatened her or was that over the Perdue/Moore crap.

Am I in the ballpark?
 
News of the 10th district: See Pat Go Bye Bye,

Instead, Mr. or Mrs. I vote for honest candidates, I challenge you to share your positive thoughts about Mr. Besse or Mr. Smathers with 10 members of the age demographic each of them is running behind in, according to this weeks PPP poll:

Dan's strongest showing is with the youngest: he's got 29% of the 18-29 year old demographic. But he's only got 8% of 46-65 year olds. Know anyone that falls into that age range? Tap them for us, please.

Pat has 14% among that demographic, but I'm sure he'd appreciate, for instance, if you reached out to someone who is older than 65.

As for the other two, only Dalton broke double digits with any demographic according to the new PPP cross tabs. He's got 11% of the 30 to 45 year olds.

The undecideds in this race are still atrocious! Please support your honest candidates by telling as many someones as possible about them THIS WEEK!

that we are spending time nit picking Hampton's press release. There are real policy issues at take in this race, and Dellinger has actually been out front on so many of them (just look at his website, it seems to be the most substantive by far.) My intuition tells me that Dellinger probably played his fundraising in the best light possible. But isn't that what candidates do? (I think Mr. Besse would be more vocal about his own fund raising if he had been a bit more successful)

And the fact remains that Dellinger does have over $900,000 on hand (it take A LOT of resources to communicate to voters in the 9th biggest state in the Union), and as Be Patriotic pointed out above, he has over 400 unique NC donors, and I'm told many of them are in small increments, quite possible more that the other candidates garnered.

there is nothing wrong with open, frank discussion. But when i get the sense of a "hit job" as someone mentioned earlier that irks me. Hey, if Robert P is standing up against sketchy attacks on HD, I think that carries some credence!

Fact: Dan Besse had more unique in-state donors on his year end report than Dellinger did.

At least 132 of Hamp's 348 (not 400 as is incorrectly repeated above) were out of state donors. And 24 of those were duplicates.

Besse had 199.

Go ahead, check it out.

I've got to admit: this conversation is beginning to bore even me. And I have a feeling that we're going to start embarrassing ourselves real soon (if we haven't already).

Dellinger's people raised a lot of money. Good luck to them.

Me? I've got a feeling that this is a weird year and that there are variables at play that no one has fully sussed out...

Think fast, think well, and expect the unexpected.

Politics is like sports in some respects. If you're bored with the actual game you can concentrate on stats. One stat may be more important than the other. Stating one and not the other doesn't make it "unethical". Steroids are "unethical". Put it in perspective. None of it is more important than the game.

As to posting, I believe it may take a little anger to get over an initial fear of writing. I'm willing to cut some slack as long as the person sticks around and engages, without anger, even if I believe they are totally wrong.

I'm also thinking that a comment should be longer than a sig. When I tune out a sig visually I tune out the material nearby.

Aside from who's an operative, which polls mean what, and whether I can get a "BlueNC Club" t-shirt, the point that Dellinger uses a different set of facts in order to paint himself as the money leader is telling. I don't trust him because of stuff like this. When there are two and a half progressives in the race (I still don't know if Smathers is progressive or devolutionist) and policy differences are harder to come by, things like this matter a lot.

Further, If Dellnger's going to trumpet his fundraising then it's got to be o.k. to notice that 50% of it came from out of state. Don't hold up your baby and then expect us not to look at it.

This is politics as usual, and I'm tired of it.

Those things being said, DrFrankLives can have a conniption on me now.

We're really into political swag in our family.

Can you imagine being seven years old and knowing nothing besides the twisted Bushie version of America? This face says:

"Bush fatigue? Is there anything else?"

An Obama presidency is the least we can do to begin to make up for that.

Click the photo for further endorsements...

I heard about this post and write to offer a few thoughts.

If other candidates filed their reports on say Jan. 2nd, and I filed weeks later, I could see the apples to oranges point (with a caveat explained below). However, that is not what happened here. Three of the four candidates – Dan, Walter and myself – all filed on the same day, January 25th. (Pat filed a few days earlier I believe).

Campaigns typically announce cash on hand on the date of their fundraising filing if their cash on hand is measurably greater than the amount in their report. Any candidate with greater financial resources on January 25th than on December 31st could easily have announced the fact.

Here’s the caveat: campaigns with a number of salaried staff often do not pay staffers until just after they report their cash on hand number. I don’t know if that is the case with other Lt. Gov. campaigns or not. It is not the case with me. I had no major outstanding staff or other expenses when I reported my cash on hand on January 25th.

While I’ve seen campaigns announce their up-to-date cash on hand in press releases on the date they file their fundraising report, I took an extra step of accountability and put my date of filing financial number in the report filed with the State Board of Elections. I did this so my cash on hand number was not “soft” or otherwise deceptive but, rather, a number I was willing to certify to the Board of Elections was accurate.

And my press release included copies of the summary filings for Dan, Walter, and myself so that readers can view the fundraising situation for themselves.

Given: (1) my willingness to not only release but certify my cash on hand number, and (2) include copies of other candidate reports in my release, I respectfully disagree with the post’s position. However, I will ensure that underlying assumptions, even ones I believe are well known, are explicitly set forth in future fundraising releases.

Ultimately, what matters most is not how much money a candidate has but what they have to say. As you can see at www.HD08.com, I have issued numerous detailed and progressive policy proposals. I have been meeting with voters across the state and I have participated in every debate, both last year and this year. And my service at the highest levels of the Governor’s office and the Department of Justice will give me important experiences to draw on if I have the honor of serving as North Carolina’s next Lt. Governor.

As always, thanks for your interest in the LG’s race.