Noriega faces major fundraising hurdles
San Angelo Standard-Times
July 28, 2008
Even though Noriega had raised $2.5 million as of June 30, he had about 1/10 of the cash on hand that Cornyn has - about $900,000 to Cornyn's $9 million. A major problem confronting Noriega in raising more is that national Democratic officials have Texas pegged as a red state, and thus presume Cornyn's re-election fairly certain. (Even the presidential campaign of Barack Obama doesn't expect to win the state, despite Obama's and the Democrats' claimed 50-state strategy.)
Part of the problem Noriega faces is Texas' size. With 19 media markets and 24 million people, it is quite expensive to put on the kind of TV ad campaign considered necessary to win a top-of-the-ticket statewide race. A saturation TV campaign in Texas costs more than $1.5 million a week.
That's the Catch-22 that Noriega faces. He is presumed unlikely to have a fighting chance to win in Texas unless he has millions to spend on TV ads. But he has trouble raising that money because many of the people who control it think a Democrat can't win Texas.
The Kansas Democrat who's also challenging an incumbent Republican senator is former U.S. Rep. Jim Slattery of Topeka, 59. Slattery was in Austin for the recent Netroots blogger convention.
Slattery served a dozen years in the U.S. House before losing a governor's race in 1994 - a notably bad year for Democrats nationwide. Since then, he's been associated with a Washington law firm.
The Republican incumbent, U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, was elected to the Senate in 1996 after 16 years in the House.
At a fundraising reception at Austin's Four Seasons Hotel on July 17 during his Netroots visit, Slattery told several dozen attendees that they would get a good bang for their bucks.
"One of the great things about Kansas is it is a relatively small state in comparison with Texas," Slattery said. He said his campaign could buy saturation TV ads for six weeks for $3 million - less than one-third of what saturation coverage takes in Texas.
Noriega's fundraising challenge isn't helped by the fact that a Texas Democrat hasn't won statewide office since 1994. Kansas, by contrast, has a Democratic governor (Kathleen Sebelius) who was re-elected in 2006, plus a lieutenant governor and attorney general, both high-profile Republicans who switched to run under the Democratic banner.
Slattery told the Austin group that Kansas, which hasn't gone for a Democrat for president since 1964, or for the U.S. Senate since 1932, has been trending from a red state toward blue. A decade ago, it had just one Democratic statewide official and no U.S. Senate or House members. Now it has the three statewide officials, and two of its four U.S. House members are Democrats.
Slattery was recruited for the race by the Kansas Democratic Party and by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Noriega, on the other hand, has been having a tough time convincing the DSCC that his race is a good investment. However, as of the most recent campaign finance report, the DSCC has yet to donate any money to Slattery's campaign. It gave Noriega $20,000 at the end of last year.
Dave McNeely is retired political columnist for the Austin American-Statesman. Contact him at dmcneely@austin.rr.com
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