No money, no campaign
05/24/2010
There is a simple equation Crowley Political Report uses to help determine the chances of a candidate winning statewide office in Florida.
Do you have the money?
It would be nice to think a candidate could just go door-to-door building support but with 4 million Republicans, 4.6 million Democrats and 2.5 million in the party of Other, that's a lot of doors.
So say you're in the Aug. 24 GOP primary expecting 25 percent turnout - or a bit more than 1.1 million voters. Still a lot of doors. But you're hardy candidate who knocks on doors meeting 1,000 voters every day for 365 days. That's 365,000 voters.
Great, right? Well you still have to reach the other 700,000 plus. And if you're in a general election it's going to be more like a couple of million.
So you need money for TV, radio, direct mail (does anybody really read it?), phone banks, travel, staff salaries and on and on. It costs millions.
Which is why we heard this today from Republican state Sen. Paula Dockery who raised little money and dropped out of the GOP primary race for governor.
"It is with mixed feelings that I end my campaign to be your next governor. People who know me know I'm a tenacious fighter unafraid of long odds, especially when the stakes are so high. But I'm also a realist and I understand the costs of effectively competing statewide. At this point in the election cycle, I see no financial path to victory."
Comments