Point Austin: A Few Thoughts About Money

We're still paging through the latest round of City Council election campaign finance reports, current through Sept. 25 and posted by the City Clerk Oct. 6, roughly "30 days out" from Nov. 4. We've pulled the big numbers for your review ("The Money Race," Oct. 10), and that's about as far as we've gotten, awash as the News staff is in other reporting (including interviewing the same candidates). If you have time and stamina, check out the City Clerk's election website and the posted reports; they don't exactly make fascinating reading, but they do offer a snapshot of who funds (i.e., can afford to fund) our local political campaigns.

Even at Austin's absurdly low $350 limit on individual contributions, not many people can (or will) spend money on political candidates. For example, mayoral candidate Steve Adler's latest report (listing all contributions and expenditures) is 353 pages long, but his reports list (according to Adler) about 2,500 donors in all. Within a midterm electorate that might comprise 200,000 people, 1% is not a whole lotta contributors, and many of those are also contributing further up the ballot in statewide and federal races. As consultant Katie Naranjo told the Statesman Tuesday, candidates are quickly running into "donor fatigue."

That's in part because many of us bitch about "money in politics," but our primary weapon against it is withholding our own. "Money don't buy everything, it's true" ... but a reasonable amount of it is necessary to virtually any human endeavor, including the paper (or website) you're reading, and certainly political campaigns.

Cheap Cuts

So where does the money race stand at the moment? Surprisingly, as of Sept. 25 Sheryl Cole had more cash on hand ($176,000) than either of her two major rivals, Adler ($101,000) or Mike Martinez ($102,000). That would be more noteworthy if it weren't apparent that Cole has spent almost nothing ($26,000), and has had little campaign presence outside of the myriad (but in cumulative terms, lightly attended) candidate forums. The mayor pro tem is apparently hanging fire for a late-race media buy, but predictably spun her report as reflecting her "PTA Mom" profile: "When you can't afford steak, you buy pot roast ... ."

Also worth noting is that Adler, while raising well, is literally spending money faster than he is raising it; if it weren't for another self-loan of $102,000 ($296,000 in all), his campaign would be tapped out. Can he spend the other two into the ground? All three would appear to be entering the last three weeks with sufficient funds to fill Austin's TV screens, while implying that, unlike themselves, each of their opponents is spending money wastefully.

It's Only Money

You can hardly blame them, since the voters' private anxieties about money are only amplified by our political arrangements, especially in an election year when "affordability" is on every Austinite's tongue. That means that, in the wake of the CFR releases, the various campaigns have tried to strike a balance between trumpeting their fundraising prowess while insisting that their campaign is really above all that unseemly cash. My favorite press release in that ambivalent vein was issued by District 4 Council candidate Greg Casar, who declared, "Of course, I'm happy that we remain in the lead financially, but at the same time I feel passionately that money has too much influence in politics. That's why [we] ... remain a grassroots, volunteer-driven campaign, focused relentlessly on giving the working families of District 4 a voice at City Hall. If we prevail in the election, it will be about people, not money."

Peace to candidate Casar, but to use more appropriately a principle of the Nation­al Rifle Association, it's people who provide the money, and while none of these district candidates need gobs of it, they do need enough to get their names and messages into the minds and hearts of voters across their districts. A few have willingly (they insist) eschewed fundraising altogether, and while I certainly wish them well, if you wouldn't expect to build a house with no money, you shouldn't expect either to build a campaign (or a movement) with none.

In a few instances – Adler, District 10's Robert Thomas, District 9's Kathie Tovo, a few others – the trend of big self-loans is troubling, as if these offices are so valuable the candidates couldn't just rely on the kindness of strangers (or friends). What to do about it is another question. A couple of the candidates have mentioned limiting the loans, but the likelihood of the nation's courts allowing any limitation on a candidate's own spending is virtually nil. It's a rock-hard principle of U.S. law, not to mention popular sentiment, that amusing oneself by emptying one's bank account is as inalienable a right as the pursuit of happiness.

One reason for 10-1 was to make City Council campaigns cheaper to run for "grassroots" candidates; what's cheaper to run is also cheaper to buy, and especially in the Westside districts, we're likely seeing the beginning of vanity campaigns by deep-pocketed candidates. In the citywide mayoral race, by contrast, Adler seems determined to demonstrate that the sky's the limit. Whatever this year's outcome, we can bet he's set the new standard for what mayoral candidates will be willing to pay for Austin's top job.