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Fri. Jul 16, 2004

Latest from the 4th District

The primary is next Tuesday here in Georgia, and I thought I’d pass on what’s been happening this week in the 4th Congressional District campaign.

First, since 2nd quarter reports were recently filed by the campaigns, let’s talk money (with more on McKinney’s money at the bottom):

Congressional candidate Cathy Woolard startled political observers today when she announced a fundraising tally of $411,773 for the quarter that concluded on June 30, with $273,952 of cash on hand — totals well in excess of the sums raised by any of her rivals for the Democratic nomination in the Fourth District.

“If people want to know who can hit the ground running in Congress, they can take one look at these figures and do the math,” Woolard said. “We took this effort from a standing start to having a fully-funded budget in just three months, thanks to hard work and having the know-how to get the job done.”

Rival candidate Liane Levetan, apparently forced to siphon money from personal funds to stay competitive, loaned her campaign $200,000 using her retirement account as collateral on the last day of the quarter [...] Woolard campaign consultant Beth Schapiro — a counselor to an array of noteworthy figures in Georgia politics — says the loan “is clearly risky. It shows incredible nervousness to leverage 40 percent of your retirement fund just to stay afloat for the last two weeks of a campaign.”

“What makes this loan so inexplicable is that this race is clearly headed for a runoff,” says Beth Schapiro. “If Levetan has this tough a time running a campaign right now, what kind of shape can her supporters expect to find her in if she has to get back in the ring for round two?”

Meanwhile, Cathy Woolard filed state and federal ethics complaints against Levetan because of her usage of funds from one office to look into running for another office.

Levetan’s campaign said the survey — conducted by Virginia-based Cooper Secrest and Associates — evaluated her performance as state senator and as former DeKalb County CEO, as well as her chances in a newly drawn state Senate district and in the 4th Congressional District.

But Elaine Smith of Stone Mountain said she spent a half-hour on the phone with a Virginia-based pollster in April answering questions about Levetan.

The pollster did not mention Levetan’s stint as state senator or CEO, Smith said, but he did ask about her chances against other 4th District candidates.

“One thing that was very obvious was that the poll had to do with the 4th District congressional race,” Smith said.

Levetan’s campaign manager said Smith is “just wrong.”AJC: “4th District: A scramble for lead”

Hey, nothing like calling your consitituents a liar! Perversely, Levetan’s campaign had one other response to this: “Levetan, a member of the state Senate Ethics Committee, maintains she has done nothing wrong. ‘Given the potential appearance of any impropriety, I have refunded [half] of the poll cost’ to her Senate campaign fund, she said Tuesday.”

She refunded half of the $21,345? Is she admitting she was half wrong? Or half right? And what would that make Elaine Smith of Stone Mountain, the woman they said was “just wrong.” Was she really only half wrong? Frankly, it’s a rather strange reaction. Either say there was no harm, no foul, no refund, or say, “to allay any such perception, all the money will be refunded.” Half measures leave you looking fully foolish.

I’ve read some poll numbers this week that seemed so flimsy (sample size of 500) they aren’t worth repeating here, so I can’t begin to predict what will happen next Tuesday. But it looks to me like a three way fight to get into a runoff, between McKinney, Levetan, and Woolard.

Political scientist William Boone of Clark Atlanta University says “The candidate who can get beyond their own base of support is the one who will end up the winner or wind up in a runoff.”

As a constituent of the 4th, I’ve either gotten mailings or seen TV ads from Levetan, Woolard, and Stokes. And a whole lot of yard signs for Chris Vaughn. The strategy of the McKinney campaign has been to focus on her “stronghold” in South Dekalb (the one that failed her in 2002 with horrible turnout numbers), and try to attract the youth vote through her “Hip Hop” initiative. There’s been no outreach to her former constituents in the northern part of the district, the ones who largely got her un-elected two years ago. Rather than attempt to mend fences, she appears to have written us off, and expects to be able to win with what she’s got.

But whoever gets elected will have to represent us all. I expect to hold them to that, no matter who gets the job. And I won’t vote for someone whose very campaign tactics indicate she’s only interested in half of us.

Later: Actually, it might be considerably less than half. I forgot to point out a comment by Karen Elliot: “According to her recently filed financial disclosures, nearly 90% of McKinney’s bucks are from outside Georgia. This sharply contrasts with Woolard or Levetan (17% and 7% out-of-State money respectively).” Just like two years ago, except worse: ”...Cynthia McKinney gets 78.2% of her individual contributions from out of state (individual contributions compose 72.7% of the $511,491 dollars raised). In the list of Zip Codes with the highest donations, the Top Ten contains exactly one within her district (mine’s not even in the Top 15).” In fact, if you read over this year’s list of donors, it’s almost exactly like last time: “Most of McKinney’s individual donors listed on disclosure reports in 2001 and this year have Arabic names and live out of state.” [quote from the AJC]