Apr 292016
 

Let’s go from the bottom up.

Suzanne Jones, has $2500 left. Has lent herself about $10k

Kevin Hanley, has a net $54k left. Has bought some radio and some mail. Has only raised about $20k from people not named Kevin Hanley.

The first real news is that Cristi Nelson raised about $23k TOTAL in 2016. After the reports cut off, Nelson’s Husband went to a couple vendors for another $10k which leaves Nelson with $106k in the bank, just enough to re-pay the $100k loan.

Andy Pugno has given himself $101k, and lent himself 100k + has gotten an additional $16,800 in loans from family. When you subtract his unpaid bills from his cash total, he has about $215k in the bank. Pugno is in debt to Tim Clark, who was hired by Rob Manafort to work for Donald Trump, $15k of the $47k in unpaid bills he reported.

If you are scoring at home: 10K Jones, 105K Hanley, 201K Pugno, 100K Nelson = 416K chipped in by Republican candidates on themselves.

Nelson has raised a little more than 105K, Hanley, 15K, Pugno about 25K and Jones about 10K for a total of $155K.

This is insane. Of The total $571k reported by the above, only 27% of it was raised, the remaining 73% was from their own pocket.

Now, to young Mr. Kiley. The reports showed that the $80k in out of district money he reported was raised for him by an intermediary. This matches the impression I had of his campaign and fundraising all along. In addition, the overwhelming majority of his money is from out of district.

Kiley has given himself $8400 out of his 238K raised. That is not an issue. The real issue is that over half of his money is from Bay Area donors.

Kiley’s campaign crew made sue to leave him with 100k in the bank for the psychological value of having six figures. This is also similar to the staged pictures and the super selective campaign activity designed to create an appearance. It remains to be seen if substance will follow.

Now to my guy, Bill Halldin.

He did not use an intermediary to raise his $230k. He did not come out of pocket for anything significant (maybe $2k) and he raised $230k in 6 less months than young Mr. Kiley.

Halldin reported $130k net in the bank. This puts him in a clear first place, especially since none of the money in his account is his own.

Kiley and Pugno have already sent their first mail pieces and the storm is landing now. Buckle up people.

Do not believe anyone’s press releases – here are the raw numbers

Candidate         TIME IN CAMPAIGN           Amount Raised                Amount of Own Money+Loans         Net Raised

Cristi Nelson    18 Months                              208k                                     100k                                                            108k

Andy Pugno     2 months                                260k                                     201K + 17K                                                 42k

Kevin Hanley  6 months                                 125k                                     105k                                                              20k

Kevin Kiley      11 months                                238k                                   8k                                                                   230k

Bill Halldin     6 months                                  230k                                   5k                                                                    225k

 

Kevin Kiley had to get outside help to draw even in the money race, something he can not keep up. Bill Halldin is the clear front-runner, because real donors equal real support. When you look closer, over 2/3 of his money is from inside the district. No hyperbole here, just facts.

Apr 232016
 

Please note – I am helping Bill Halldin and was proud to have been involved in helping him from almost the day he decided to run for AD06. This blog post is written from a 30,000 foot view as best I can despite my personal interest in electing Bill Halldin to the Assembly.

Where do we stand right now in the #AD06 race?

Andy Pugno – everyone acknowledges that he has a name ID advantage. Apparently, Andy Pugno and his campaign consultant Tim Clark (who was also hired by Rob Manafort to work for Donald Trump in California) were convinced enough that Mr. Clark had been working behind the scenes to try to set Pugno up for a run.

In addition – Tim Clark or Andy Pugno himself believe that his chances are so good that Mr. Pugno just contributed $200,000 more to his own campaign. Pugno can not recover this money, unlike the first $100,000. I will be curious to see how that money was spent at the end of the day. I am also curious to see how Tim Clark can run the entire state for Donald Trump while helping Pugno.

All this said, had I not been involved helping Bill Halldin from Day One – I’d have certainly been involved in Andy Pugno’s campaign. Pugno remains my second choice in #AD06.

Kevin Kiley – a young trial lawyer who supports Gay Marriage and has publicly attacked Andy Pugno for writing Proposition 8, has reported $80,700 in contributions since the 24-hour period opened. Only $6500 is from the Sacramento Area. It is safe to say that this young socially liberal trial lawyer is funded by Bay Area Liberals (and donors from New York and Washington DC).

Kiley has had limited campaign activity and has made interesting decisions on spending and content appears to be running to the center in the primary by touting the endorsement of a GOP-Destroying former Governor. Kiley has also signaled that he is going to attack Bill Halldin as he has been running his mouth liberally inside the district.

Cristi Beckstead-Nelson – her campaign appears to be running out of steam. She has had events that have generated little or no interest, other than placing some extremely large banners on roadsides has had little campaign activity. Beckstead-Nelson is how she is listed in county records and her voter registration, yet she is running from her legal name in her campaign. Beckstead-Nelson is also a social liberal.

Beckstead-Nelson’s campaign appears to be running out of steam. She has reported only $6800 in large checks in all of 2016. She also appears to have spent a lot of her own money and may never recoup the $100k she is on pace to lose.

Kevin “Hurricane” Hanley – has chipped in $105,000 of his own money. Aside from Halldin and Pugno, Hanley is the only other candidate running or AD06 I consider qualified and able to do the job. That said, Hanley’s campaign is headed nowhere and I sincerely hope he does not spend all of his own money.

Outside interests have polled. It appears that they are about ready to come in and make their presence known. What they do is anyone’s guess… Which gets me to Bill Halldin…

Having seen this from the inside – Halldin has a huge donor list that is likely larger than all of his opponents combined. The reports that will be public soon will show this. Secondly, these people are also helping the campaign all over the district.

Halldin, who is an unabashed Social Conservative, has managed to get the support and endorsement of people from across the spectrum of politics.

Halldin earned the following endorsements in the last two weeks: Doug Ose, Roger Niello, Congressman Doug LaMalfa, Senator Jim Nielsen, Assembly-Members James Gallagher and Frank Bigelow – representing a cross-section of the GOP and showing serious power for his candidacy.

This is going to aggregate and will make Halldin competitive with anyone running in this 11 candidate mess.

My analysis will stop here as the insanity will begin to hit people’s mailboxes soon. It is time for me to grab my Trump hat and some breakfast… gotta go get some precincts covered. Make #AD06 Great Again…

Mar 092016
 

I was pinged on a poll that referenced Andy Pugno and Cristi Nelson.

This is consistent with his pattern from 2012 when he ran a poll very late right before filing closed and then pulled papers and filed against Beth Gaines.

I just received a call from someone who saw Andy Pugno at the Sacramento Elections Office.

You tell me what this means?

Click here to see that Mr. Pugno did indeed pull papers yesterday 3/10/2016.

Beth Gaines plays Dial-a-Squish for Money

 AD-06 Race, Andy Pugno, Beth Gaines, Dave Gilliard  Comments Off on Beth Gaines plays Dial-a-Squish for Money
Sep 162012
 

Recently, Conservative Hero Shannon Grove gave Andy Pugno $3900.

So, Connie Conway had to answer that. Beth Gaines received a total of $5000 from three tax-raising moderate Republicans. Paul Cook (whose congressional campaign was heavily funded by Charles Munger IE’s), Jeff Gorell (who voted for the timber tax) and Katcho Achidijian (who also voted for the timber tax).

Don’t take my word for it. Click Here.

What I think is amazing is that Beth Gaines did not raise a dime for two months after the primary. Either she couldn’t, or was too lazy to make the calls. (If she is even making them now)

Neither scenario is a good thing.

However, David Stafford Gilliard is the big winner here – he gets to make more consulting fees now that he and Connie Conway basically welcomed Andy Pugno back in to the race.

Aug 242012
 

Everyone in insider politics knows that Dave Gilliard has two-three indian tribe outfits that he can go to to get IE money on behalf of candidates. Dave Gilliard is the campaign manager of Beth Gaines.

Every insider knows that Dave Gilliard has a glass jaw and the slightest criticism causes him to go off the deep end – which is why he teamed up with people he is not aligned with to try and get even with the Placer GOP for refusing to support Beth Gaines.

Recently, Andy Pugno sent out an email lambasting Dave Gilliard for outright lying in the June primary. It also went in to detail about how Beth Gaines relied on the votes of 12,000 non-Republicans to make it in to the November Runoff.

Gilliard must be desperate. After months of showing little or no life – Beth Gaines got $4k in Pac Money yesterday and on cue, an Indian Tribe dropped $20k on attack ads on KFBK. It is the Pashkenta Band – a tribe familiar to Gilliard that has invested in several of his clients over the years. How the FPPC never burns Gilliard on this is beyond me.

I am sitting here at my desk looking at an endorsement card for Beth Gaines for Assembly that I asked Beth’s Field Director, Jeff Short to send me. Despite the fact that the Gaines and Gilliard tried to gut the Central Committee in retaliation for our support of Pugno, I was prepared to endorse in the interest of peace.

Never, ever underestimate the stupidity of Ego.

Now, I am throwing the endorsement card in the trash – because drawing first blood like this is stupid and desperate. Andy Pugno has not even declared his intention to run or not yet – but the behavior of Gilliard and Connie Conway has been absurd. It does not matter whether Andy runs or not – any part of me that could support the Gaines was just killed.

There has been a ton of chest-beating stupidity in the AD-06 race and we don’t even have a race yet!

If Andy Runs – it is Dave Gilliard and Connie Conway’s fault… this thing was basically over until they got involved again and again. Just wow.