And I’ve got an hilarious gift for you today, dear reader.
Over the last several days I’ve been able to interview several staffers of Daniel Mongiardo’s U.S. Senate campaign and have also spoken with a few people close to the Lt. Governor. The verdict? His campaign is a serious flustercuck. It’s in a complete and total downward spiral. His donors are jumping ship left and right. His second quarter haul was inflated. His real cash on hand is thousands upon thousands of dollars lower than reported. And there’s not a soul in Washington who isn’t pressing Lt. Dan to jump ship.
We could hash that out for days, but I’m sure you only want to hear the juicy parts. Got my hands on a copy of the Mongiardo campaign’s budget. Authored by none other than “Kim” on June 19th.
So let’s dig in.
From what we’ve been able to discern, he’s only hoping to raise $650,000 in the third quarter (he’ll raise like $250K, ha). No one in their right mind believes he can pull that kind of cash based on his second quarter performance. But it’s still a mighty low number. And throughout May 2010, they’re only planning to raise $2,355,000. And even if they could raise that? There’s a planned $135,960 shortfall. See for yourself:
That’s all fine and dandy. Because there’s some really absurd crap going down in Mongiardo land. For instance, they’re paying Geveden $5,000/mo until February when the campaign plans to hire a manager at $11K/mo.Let’s talk salaries of the rest of the staff:
- Dick Prelopski, Field Director – $5k/mo
- Floyd S (Seals?), Deputy Field Director – $$3k/mo
- Western Kentucky Field (Months of Feb-May) – $2,500/mo
- Louisville Field (Lisa?) – $2K/mo – So the big city is obviously important to them, despite protestations from Kim Geveden and a few Mongiardo supporters.
- Nothing for field in Eastern Kentucky
- Jeremiah, Communications – $1,600/mo
- Kara Ratliff, Call Time Manager/Scheduler – $2K/mo
- Christina Gilgore, Finance Director – $5K/mo
- Jared Smith, Eastern Kentucky finance – $2,500/mo
- Lauren Biggs, Central Kentucky finance – $2,500/mo
- Eric (?), Northern Kentucky finance – $3K/mo
- Andrew (?) – $1,600/mo
- Joey Couch – $3,500/mo
Want the rest of the Mongiardo juicy, juicy? Check it out after the jump…
Other highlights:
- $15K in September for communication
- $34K in January for polling
- $2,000 this month for opposition research
- $20K this month for campaign literature
- SKD is paid $9K this month (had to hold off on paying to beef up that faux cash on hand – just like we reported weeks ago) and then $3K for following months
- Spent $1,200 on a still photo
- No plans for cable, internet or weekly newspaper advertising
- Liberty Concepts got $12,400 this month (again, beefing up faux cash on hand) for Mongiardo’s new website
- Spending an average of $34K/mo (!!!) on fundraising. Yes, on fundraising. Absolutely abysmal fundraising, we might add.
- Plan to spend less than 50% of the budget on television. To quote a knowledgeable campaign veteran, that should be considered campaign malpractice.
- Lee Murphy was only paid $1,500/mo as an IT consultant. He got ripped off.
Now that you’ve seen some juicy bits (trust me – there are more), let’s discuss. What do you think, folks?
We think we need to come up with a stronger term than flustercuck to describe that campaign mess. Hoo boy.
OH OH – a big P.S. Lt. Dan was removed from the E-Health Committee. Talk about major embarrassment. That’s his number one campaign issue. And he was removed. Wonder how his campaign will spin THAT mess?
28 responses so far ↓
1 Terri // Jul 21, 2009 at 12:11 pm
What a mess! So, you think he’s going to bow out gracefully or try to market himself as the little underdog?
2 Jimmah // Jul 21, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Underdogs don’t hire a complete staff. His only hope is to fire them all, fire most of the consultants, and strip it down to a telemarketing operation with him and a finance person.
3 schankula // Jul 21, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Underdog?
Dan Mongiardo is the frontrunner!
This is all so sad. All those poor sad Mongiardo people!
4 Jim Anderson Stivers // Jul 21, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Shack,
That is what I hear. Dr. Dan is ahead in all the polling. He may not have raised as much moneyas Conwaythe last time out. But his rural support is there.
Drop out . . . wishfull thinking by someone.
5 schankula // Jul 21, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Yeah. And I heard Santa was coming early this year.
Also, please don’t confuse me with Shack — I don’t think he’d appreciate it.
6 Matt // Jul 21, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Staff is staff.
Pardon me for always believing that slinging shit at a candidate is part of the game and to be expected, but you leave nuts and bolts staff out of it. To call out ground level staff by name because you have a bone to pick with the candidate is petty, vindictive, unprofessional and only going to come back to haunt in the long run. Most respected bloggers and other new media sources have been around long enough to learn what political staffers learned a long time ago; You never know what side you’re going to be on in the next campaign and you never know who is going to be on your team.
Feel free to keep your target on candidates, they are used to it and by the very nature of thier profession they should be prepared for it. And honestly, the same goes for those in a campaign’s inner circle of advisors, but leave staff out of it.
7 Ray Re // Jul 21, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Jake, about that twelve hundred dollar still photo. Any truth to the rumor that it shows Jack and Jerry doing the chicken dance in Cherokee Park?
8 jake // Jul 21, 2009 at 1:36 pm
It’s basically public record who is staff and isn’t – based on FEC reports that are searchable on the internets.
We aren’t calling them out or targeting. They’re merely named as staff, as quoted from the documents.
For two years I’ve written about staffers on nearly every major campaign in the Commonwealth.
And before that, Mark Nickolas wrote about staffers. Several times, I was one of those staffers written about.
9 jake // Jul 21, 2009 at 1:37 pm
I’m pretty sure the photography work is of Lt. Dan & the wife.
10 TJ // Jul 21, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Matt — Campagin staff salaries are available to the general public through various reporting websites, whether KREF or FEC. If you take a job with a campaign, your salary info will be available to everyone. Just part of the gig.
11 Matt // Jul 21, 2009 at 1:46 pm
What was the purpose naming them? Under what context was naming the Call Room Manager and her salary, while publically availible information, “news.”
TJ, I firmly disagree that it’s “part of the gig.” Under most circumstances, unless a staffer makes news on thier own, the buck should stop with a candidate. Staff is not running for office.
12 jake // Jul 21, 2009 at 1:50 pm
That’s absolutely false. Every campaign I’ve worked on has either done press releases naming every staffer and their background, has given that information to the press or bloggers have written about it.
It’s news because it’s part of the documentation I was given. It’s also news because they’re part of a U.S. Senate campaign.
The information is, indeed, part of the gig because it’s available via the FEC. And if you believe otherwise, you clearly haven’t read a bit of political news the past five or six years.
13 jake // Jul 21, 2009 at 1:52 pm
By the way – I love how folks who work at advertising agencies with state contracts and relationships with people like Daniel Mongiardo pretend to know so much about what’s right and what’s not.
14 J // Jul 21, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Ha… leave the staff alone?
The staff is fair game… completely fair game.
15 jake // Jul 21, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Attacking them is not fair game.
But mentioning who works for a candidate certainly is. As is mentioning what a candidate pays them to do their political work.
16 Matt // Jul 21, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Just sticking up for staff. Always have, always will no matter what side.
17 jake // Jul 21, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Oh, and Mongiardo supporters?
You can stop calling me to make threats.
The documents were leaked to me by multiple individuals. I will not reveal identities.
18 J // Jul 21, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Attacking them… of course not… as a staffer… but letting the public know who they are… of course…
But then again… I guess I’m just playing the part of broken record now…
… but seriously… how could this have gone so downhill so quick… I mean… it’s just shocking.
19 Bruce Maples // Jul 21, 2009 at 3:22 pm
“… downhill so fast …”
No need to call it downhill till we see how it shakes out. Money votes, and neither does staff. Even good strategy can lose.
If Mongiardo’s base is as strong as he thinks, he won’t need as much television. Lock ‘em in early, score some polling victories, then get ‘em to the polls and win. If those tea leaves are correct, money for field staff is money well spent.
If, OTOH, support is soft or undecided, and Mongiardo gets into a TV war with Conway, he’s toast, overwhelmed by the electron onslaught.
Just have to wait and see. Too early, IMHO, to call it “falling apart.” Remember McCain.
20 Bruce Maples // Jul 21, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Phhtt – supposed to be “money does not equal votes” with less-than greater-than symbols. Damn HTML. :–)
21 Steve // Jul 21, 2009 at 3:52 pm
I don’t think Jake attacked any staffers.
But it might have seemed so, since they probably don’t appreciate being associated with such a crippled campaign.
The importance of Conway’s fundraising coup cannot be overstated. Voters and donors alike tend to line up behind perceived front-runners. Thus it’s easier to win when folks think you’re gonna win.
Those salaries do seem bloated. And they’re very interesting — especially to those of us who aren’t campaign wonks.
I am a career newsman, however. And in my judgment, they’re newsworthy — especially if the campaign is misallocating its limited resources.
At the very least, their publication has ignited quite a robust interchange of ideas.
And that’s a good thing.
22 Conservative // Jul 21, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Just because that slimeball Nickolas did it doesn’t mean you should emulate it.
Where is he, anyway? On second thought, who cares? As long as he is out of Kentucky, all’s well and good.
23 jake // Jul 21, 2009 at 4:35 pm
He did so while legitimately reporting on releases from campaigns…
24 Curt Morrison // Jul 21, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Good work Jake.
Surprised to see someone (Matt) make an argument that staffers & their salary should be left out of it. Since state and city employee identities, and incomes are public record (the CJ even has a search engine for this)-wouldn’t it make sense to expect the same level of TRANSPARENCY in a political campaign?
25 brian smith // Jul 21, 2009 at 4:59 pm
“I’m pretty sure the photography work is of Lt. Dan & the wife.”
I didn’t realize Chuck E. Cheese souvenir photos were so expensive.
26 J // Jul 21, 2009 at 7:16 pm
zing!
27 Conservative // Jul 21, 2009 at 10:17 pm
I just couldn’t resist a shot at Nickolas. Wonder if he’s still allergic to soap & water?
28 Jim Anderson Stivers // Jul 22, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Conservative,
If it were not for the start of Bluegrass Reports there would not be the volumne of blog post.
Mark N. is truly the originator of blog reporting in the Bluegrass, probably Kentucky.
I was wondering?
Are there any -polling- numbers in the race for US Senator, by anyone?
If so why are they not published.
Leave a Comment