Paula Hawks seems to be gearing up for a tough legislative race. Too bad it’s a state legislative race, and not a congressional one.
Hawks 2015 4q / year end FEC report
Hawks has posted $48,383.18 in total contributions, a significant drop from the $63k she posted in the last quarter. Spending is at $24,492, up from the $17,791, and her cash reserves are at $69,491 – an increase from the $45,601 of the last quarter, but still not enough to put her in striking distance of Congresswoman Kristi Noem’s 1.5 Million cash on hand.
What else did we learn from her report?
It looks like Hawks has started paying herself a salary off of the donations being made, which is allowable under the law. And we learned that former SDDP staffer Zach Nistler made $10,454 over the preceding months.
We also learned that Hawks has most of her donors running through ACT Blue, with $15,774 having been funneled through the organization set up for bundling individual on-line donations. They tend to be small dollar donations, but Hawks is tapping them hard.
Bigger dollar individual donors are paying the bills, but dinging people via on-line e-mail is still bringing it in from the greatest number of people willing to spend money on a Democrat, managing about enough to pay for Nistler and Hawks to campaign. And they manage to shield their identity somewhat on Hawks’ report.
Still, by this point, Matt Varilek was posting numbers over $104,000 in terms of funds raised. With Hawks unable to achieve half of that, she’s at the point where she might want to think about whether it’s all worth it.
And don’t forget that Varilek had $104,000 in the bank after announcing in early December. Hawks announced in early August. So Varilek doubled her amount in 1/3 of the time
Varilek was a good candidate minus the charisma factor.
Noem does well beating up on the weaklings the SDDP puts up against her but for some reason she shies away from tough GOP opponents.
That’s why my prediction is Mickelson and Jackley push her out of the Governor’s race just like Rounds kept her out of the senate race.
The most disappointing thing about Hawks is she doesn’t even try to get free media like Varilek did. Varilek ran a good campaign in the media against Noem and probably beat her and her staff with one hand behind his back.
He didn’t have charisma though and he was a Democrat in a red state. If it was a boxing match though Varilek won that race by the judges scoring.
Noem is obviously substantially better but she was caught flat footed by Varilek.
I think Noem could win any race she ran for.
Anonymous 11:14,
Pretty good assessment of Varilek but I think he was a very good candidate.
He was experienced having been exposed to successful campaigns and had politically successful mentors in SD (Tim Johnson especially).
He had good political instincts. He understood not only should one stand by one’s principles but he also grasped one principle one needed to have is to listen to the voters. Some people are criticizing Cruz for his “softening” his view/abandoning his principles on ethanol while running in Iowa. I actually think Cruz showed humility and prudence. For him to hold a principle in the conflict of the people’s view can be an affront to the “democratic” component of a “democratic republic.” Varilek got that on a couple of issues where he stood up to far-left orthodoxy because it was an over-whelming position of the voters of South Dakota.
While he didn’t have Obama/Reagan-like, he did have a Johnson/Abdnor/Mickelson like charisma. He spoke in ways that connected to people’s real life situation on matters that mattered in their real life.
Varilek was doomed because:
1) He was running in a year that wasn’t going to be friendly to Democrats.
2) The core Democrat activists didn’t think him pure enough to be worth any effort.
3) It was the first time we saw the consequences in the SDDP of organization built around a person (Johnson and Daschle). When that was gone, there was nothing of any substance to mobilize without them in the race. Johnson and Daschle left no real legacy to the party.
Rumor is that Paula Hawks is just raising enough money to pay herself and make money. It’s all a ponzi scheme for her to profit off other people.
She might quit the race next summer, I heard.