Money to Burn
Naked City
BY AMY SMITH
Posted on 09/28/2005 2:57:14 PM PDT by DallasMike
Money to BurnNaked CityBY AMY SMITH |
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October 20, 2000:
By the time the dust had settled in the 1996 district attorney's race, the candidates had spent a combined total of nearly half a million dollars on their campaigns, with incumbent Democrat Ronnie Earle shutting out Republican opponent Shane Phelps. This time around, the same candidates are devoting what little time they have left before the election to trying to raise enough cash to take to the airwaves. And it's that last-minute fundraising that sometimes makes all the difference. For now, it's too soon to tell whether the D.A.'s race will mirror the high-dollar contest of four years ago. At any rate, Earle has the financial edge, with nearly $150,000 raised this year, through the end of September. Many of Earle's contributors -- made up of Austin's rich, powerful, and influential -- have made large-sum payments. Additionally, Earle had two fundraisers scheduled for October, one hosted by the mayor and another hosted by Asian business leaders. Phelps had raised just under $100,000 during the same nine-month period. Interestingly enough, he had fared far better on the '96 fundraising tour, with nearly a third of his contributions -- more than $100,000 -- from the Associated Republicans of Texas PAC. ART is much more invested in legislative races this election year, and with much of its big money going into the House and Senate contests, Phelps has gotten only a $5,000 piece of the statewide PAC pie thus far. Phelps struck gold on the home front, though, with a couple of local PACs coming through for their candidate. The Austin Republican Women's Club kicked in $5,000, and the Lake Travis Republican PAC gave about $4,500. Phelps also has two prominent anti-light rail individuals on his side, with Gerald Daugherty contributing about $1,500 and James Skaggs chipping in $5,000. Earle's contributors' filings read like a "Who's Who" of Austin's elite in political, legal, and tech circles around town. The $5,000 donors include lobbyists such as Public Strategies' principal owner Jack Martin and tech honchos such as light rail backer and former Vignette chief Ross Garber. While lobbyist Neal "Buddy" Jones, co-owner of HillCo Partners, is perhaps better known of late for hosting a fundraiser for GOP Land Commissioner David Dewhurst, he's also a $1,000 contributor to Earle's campaign. On the PAC beat, Earle has picked up a couple grand from the Texas Automobile Dealers Association and $1,250 from the AFL-CIO. As an interesting aside, one of Earle's Democratic opponents in 1996, Joe James Sawyer, wrote him a $500 check this year. Among Sawyer's clients is one of the three indicted suspects in the 1990 yogurt shop murder case. The first trial is scheduled to start in January.
Notable Contributors Ronnie Earle
Shane Phelps
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2000 Event Sponsored By:
Mayor Kirk Watson
Hon. Ben Barnes
Lowell Lebermann
Robin Rather &
David Murray
Mithoff & Jacks, LLP
John Sharp
Melissa Jones Stevens
The Honorable(?) Ben Barnes was on with Dan Blather the same night as the fake Texas Air National Guard memos!
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"Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle" is part of the muscle arm of the old LBJ slime machine, the Travis County Democrat Party. That's the same little organization that faxed the forged memos to Dan Blather for his little 60 Minutes Wednesday hit piece on GWB and the TANG.There are some links there as well.
CBS '60 Minutes' to Air Another Hit Piece on Tom Delay this Sunday
Do ticks bite?
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