I don't want to make a habit of using this blog to call attention to my own stories, but because it was a rather heavy news day, there was a story on Sen. Tom McClintock's direct-mail fundraising operation in today's Ventura County Star that you may have missed.
You can read the story here.
A close look at McClintock's year-end finance report shows that his campaign is spending heavily on direct mail — spending, in fact, $1.86 for every dollar it generates. At the same time, Team McClintock is building an impressive army of small donors, some who seem to be paying him on the installment plan: They send him $25 or $35 every few months. All told, he took in 6,480 contributions during the last six months of 2005.
That small-donor base, coupled with whatever help Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Republican Party provide him in tapping into traditional, big-money donors, could provide McClintock with enough cash to wage a very competitive campaign in the fall. And at the very least, he'll have a significant head start over his Democratic opponent after John Garamendi, Jackie Speier and Liz Figueroa get done emptying their campaign accounts during the primary.
At least McClintok is straight forward about asking for money. I remember some years ago when Jerry Brown tried it and said that "teachers don't need a raise because they get psychic reward from their work."
I sent him a check for 1,000 units of psychic reward to run his campaign on.
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