The end of the year financials are in, and there are some interesting results;
Mayor
Entenman; $102,000 (what is weird is that he has already spent $62,000. That is a lot this early in the game. A lot of heavy hitter business men behind Jim.
TenHaken; $94,700 (Paul is being frugal so far, he has spent $18,000) His donor list has some prominent business people on it, but not many names you would recognize.
Jamison; $27,450
Loetscher; $21,000 (she hasn’t been that thrifty either, like Entenman. She has spent $14,000)
Anderson and Zoikates haven’t filed yet. Gunn and Weiland haven’t even registered as a candidates yet.
Central District
Curt Soehl; $6,200 (Some heavy hitters behind Curt including a $500 donation from Cindy Huether)
Thor Bardon; $1,164
DeBoer; $500
At-Large A
Paulson; $23,000
Hart; $19,000 (over $18,000 came from her house campaign fund, plus she donated $6,500 to other campaigns – which is puzzling)
Brekke; $6,200
At-Large B
Erickson; $0 (Christine must be crossing her fingers that no one runs against her)
Southeast
Kiley; $5,900
If TenHaken can raise that kind of money and keep doing it, then he’ll probably be the next mayor.
I am surprised, but then again I am not surprised, by Jamison’s weak numbers in relative terms.
I could see a Entenman v TenHaken runoff getting really dirty… I don’t know, but something just tells me that that could be the case….
Loetscher needs to get Weiland to not run. Because she’ll need his votes, if she wants any chance at winning.
I thought Jolene did pretty good when you compare her numbers to Jamison. She just needs to be a little more thrifty. As a candidate you should really be dedicating 95% of your campaign coffer to direct contact with likely voters. That means materials for meet and greets and door to door, and Direct Mail.
You would have to setup a Paul/Jim runoff. That is scary in itself. Jim is probably a definate in the run-off, but let’s just hope his challenger is Jolene or Greg.
If it is Paul/Jim, then I am with Jim. A vote for Paul is a vote to create the next Thune.
Back in 1994, Democrats in town had a choice between Republican Rentschler or Republican Hanson for mayor and many did not know what to do. But for me it was obvious
(I am like Trump, here is a continuum of my Tweet)…….
…….. what to do, which was vote for Rentschler. Because for Rentschler it would be his last rodeo, but a Hansen win would be a victory that would have politically sustainability
for years to come as history has proven out.
For moderates and those of the left, it should be more able keeping TenHaken from becoming mayor and establishing his right of center political future and politics, than electing Jolene. Sometimes you have to play a defensive game and sometimes an offensive game. So given TenHaken’s marketability, this needs to be a defensive year for Democrats and their friends here in town, when it comes to the mayoral race.
#pragmatism