Can Tea Party Help Candidates Raise Money?
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Republican Joe Walsh won his party’s nomination for the Illinois 8th District Congressional seat this February. He’ll face Democrat incumbent Melissa Bean in November. But as of right this minute he’s broke.
Mr. Walsh is fond of calling himself the “tea party candidate,” but with his empty campaign coffers this is an excellent time to ask the question: can the tea party groups that endorsed him help him raise money?
This isn’t a sudden situation, though. In December just on the eve of the primary his campaign chief quit the campaign and then sued candidate Walsh over unpaid consulting fees. And now, the Daily Herald reports that two more full time staffers have left the campaign because Walsh cannot pay them.
The Herald also reports that Walsh lagged behind his primary opponents in fund raising the whole time and mentions that Bean has reported that she has $784,000 in her accounts ready to be spent on the upcoming general election in November.
Walsh needs to kick his fundraising into high gear if he expects to be able to beat an incumbent. Not only that, but it is likely that Bean will be able to command some outside financial support for her campaign, too.
Let us hope that the grassroots groups that Walsh says propelled him to victory in the primary can help him raise the cash he needs for the next step of his campaign. Getting folks past a primary is one thing but whether tea party groups like it or not elections cost a ton of money! Let’s hope they understand this.
This is something that the left does quite well; raise money. It remains to be seen if these local tea party groups (not just in Illinois 8, but all across the country) can also become a source of funding for their candidates as well as a source o votes.
Raising money is distasteful, annoying, and something that very quickly turns people off — especially people on the right. But if the various tea party groups want to be consequential they had better realize that money is one of the most important tools for taking control of our political system.
If you would like to donate to Joe Walsh go straight to his donation page at: http://walshforcongress.com/donate/
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