Dissent of the Day
Published: Tuesday, June 3, 2008 6:11 PM PDT
Reader Simple Guy writes:
Jeez Scott. On Saturday the Voice slams Jerry for raising boatloads of cash from people who do business with the City (which turns out to be a whopping 2.5% of the total amount he raised). Then today you slam him for 'lackluster fundraising' that was so pathetic it was 'shocking'. Meanwhile the poor guy has to compete against a rich guy who whips out his checkbook when he wants some more TV airtime, is spending 5 to 10 times as much as Jerry, and gets to claim he's 'independent' because he's rich enough to not have to ask for money from the dirty public. Can't a mayor get a break?"
I'm glad Simple Guy wrote this in. A couple of points: The Saturday Sanders story about him raising money from people with business in front of the city would not have been a story at all had Sanders not said (promised actually) that he wouldn't take money from such people. I have no problem with him raising money from people with business at the city -- he just has to deal with the consequences of community criticism about it. And I know he's facing an extremely wealthy opponent, so how could he compete without donations?
What I don't understand is why Sanders or his campaign would ever promise not to raise money from people like that. I mean, Francis wins that argument. Go ahead and give it to him. The mayor shouldn't have even tried to play that game and pledge to not take donations from this hot list. But he did. Reporter Rob Davis merely decided to check on the pledge.
On the second point, I didn't "slam" the mayor for not raising much money. I am shocked more that people didn't give it to him. Maybe I should have made it clear. But I think even the mayor has said that he was surprised at how difficult the fundraising has been this year.
So yeah, the mayor can have a break. But if he says he doesn't want one, and then takes it, that's when it's interesting.
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