Blake Rutherford reports that John Adams raised $50,000 in the first quarter, but suggests (rightly, in my opinion) that the sum is probably good for only fourth place behind Robbie Wills, Joyce Elliott, and David Boling, in that order.
What about Patrick Kennedy, you ask? It seems he has decided to supplant “Progress, Not Politics” with “Sarcasm, Not Substance.”
Patrick Kennedy, the youngest person in the race, was snarky when I asked him to comment about his fundraising. “About 25 million give or take a few million,” he wrote in an e-mail. When pressed further he said, “I don’t need to pay people for votes – I’m more interested in raising votes. Everyone can see my numbers when they go public and I’ll let the pundits argue it out as sport.”
Now — as I commented on Blake’s post — I completely fail to see how asking people to donate money to your campaign equals “pay[ing] people for votes. If I go to McDonald’s, I have to pay for my Egg McMuffin by giving McDonald’s money, not by asking them to support my race against Mayor McCheese.
Beyond that, though, the level of (for lack of a better word) petulance in Kennedy’s answer is astounding. If he didn’t want to tell Blake how much money his campaign raised in the first quarter, that’s Patrick’s business. But to make an obviously ridiculous statement like “25 million give or take a few million” and then follow that up with a logically flawed smart-aleck response about “raising votes” rather than “pay[ing]” for them? Not cool.
Then again, maybe that is the only approach that seems appealing when a real answer to the question would cement your standing as the least popular (as judged by donations) candidate in a five-person race. Flippant replies are probably more appealing to Kennedy than admitting to himself that quitting law school and his cushy gig at the Clinton School were not the best ideas.