Annapolis Capital Punishment

You know how I feel about this mayoral race, which keeps heating up. I hate to do this, but I guess I have to write about it. Trudy McFall, WHO IS running for mayor (again...yawwwwnnn...) has created a fancy web-site and raised some bucks-to which she has already sent out a news release telling us how many dollars she has already raised. Politics as usual. A year and a half away. Heck-I did not even know she even had a web-site. I guess telling me how much money she has raised was more important than telling me she had a web-site. Somehow or another we knew she was running for mayor.

Is Trudy McFall going to be The McCandidate in the McFall of 2009?

I just think this is bogus. Here we are a year and a half out and Trudy is setting herself up as a frontrunner before anybody has officially (at least to my recollection) even declared--all because she has some money--and where did the contributions come from? And from whom? Let's see the figures on that please.That's what counts in my mind. As if finance is what it is all about! That's what I find so offensive about political campaigning--and Trudy is engaging in the worst aspects of it--for a mayoral race in November of 2009.

How much money does she expect to raise? Is $50 thousand + or - not enough? IS she planning on buying tv ads? Placing billboards up? Hiring James Carville? If one can run an aldermanic campaign on a few thousand dollars and there are 8 wards, it seems as if $50k is already enough to run a campaign--unless of course the objective is to merely raise more than everyone else and make that the issue!

When I ran for alderman, I made it clear that I wanted to gather just a few thousand and to spend it all specifically on the campaign--and I did, with most of it going to the website and then low-key, quality and SMALL signs, not like offensive billboards that others put up. I lost. Campaign ended. Money spent. Bank account closed. No war chest.

What Trudy is doing is just business---and politics, as usual, as far as I can tell.

Trudy, it's not just about winning--or money!. It's how you play the game--unless I'm in the wrong game. Will this be an obscene race to see who gathers the most money? And then we have to ask, how does that money get spent in the campaign? Does it get used later for a "war chest" and how does it distort campaigning--not to mention how do these contributions come back to haunt later?

Tell me I'm way out of line--please! Tell me I'm being ridiculous to bring this up. Tell me that it's not really Trudy's idea to raise all this money she has to do it in order to win...at any cost.....right?

I intend to be equally tough on all candidates and am not likely to make an endorsement. I leave that to others. I prefer to really expose the issues and the candidates without any sugar coating.

I wrote a similar message to Dennis Conti, who serves as Trudy's campaign manager and we plan to meet to discuss it, but in the meantime, he said:

Of the 113 donations Trudy did receive, about 1/3 are from the Annapolis area – they are long-time friends, volunteers, and business colleagues. With respect to the Annapolis area, this initial fundraising phase did not intend to reach beyond these people. When Trudy reaches out beyond her local long-time friends in future fundraising, we expect she will have a strong grassroots response.

It is true that her other donors, who are also long-time acquaintances typically work in the affordable housing field in various professional support and technical capacities, such as architects, accounting, legal, market studies, and construction. However, she has virtually no developer contributions. She received corporate donations from only two (2) development entities, and even counting personal donations from persons active in the development field, this only adds three (3) additional firms.

To our knowledge, none of these development firms have anything in process or plans to work in the City. What is important to note is that she has not sought or accepted donations from developers or land-use attorneys who do work in the City."

Instead of showing us where her donations came from, she sent out the noticeably brief, summary reports from all municipal candidate filings, most of which may or may not be relevant, because they may or may not be mayoral candidates. I had to go elsewhere to find out where the dollars came from.
www.annapolis.gov/upload/images/government/depts/CityClerk/reports/Friends%20of%20Trudy%20McFall.pdf

Judge for yourself. The majority of contributors are from outside of town with Trudy being the largest among them, which is no surprise, but if you're going to send out a news release saying how you lead the pack, it's only appropriate to deduct the amount you have provided and be clear about that. She was not. Among the donors are deep-pocket accountants along with law firms, builders, property managers etc. This may or may not be a big deal. Only time will tell. What's bothersome is how she is basing everything on the money--even when much of it comes from her. If this is how you are going to campaign Trudy, you can rest assured that at least CP is going to find it....entertaining.