Miller, Mathias, & Money

“Senate Seats for Sale”

Recently the Salisbury Daily Times attempted to put campaign finances in perspective as they related to local races in the Maryland General Assembly.  The effort was shallow and did not truly reveal the money trail and the true cost of these races.  Here are some interesting details that folks on the Eastern Shore should find interesting and eye opening:

Candidate Total Expenses District 38 (Somerset/Wicomico/Worcester Senate Seat)

*This encompasses all campaign expenses during this election cycle beginning in January of 2011:

Mathias       $ 551,161.00

Mathias also received significant support from the Maryland Senatorial Committee Slate which is funded by Senate President Mike Miller. During this election cycle, Miller transferred $ 1.12 million dollars to support this fund. Out of this fund in direct support of Mathias came the following money:

Staff Salary for Brian Kemmet (Snow Hill)  $30,515.36

*Kemmet worked exclusively as a Mathias Staffer and received multiple payments as salary during the previous year. (None of these expenses are captured in Mathias spending total).

While Mathias also received direct transfers from the “Miller” Slate account of $ 30,000.00, he also received multiple transfers from other Democratic Senators accounts as well as from a separate account set up by the Democratic Senate Caucus.

Transfers from Senators from the Western Shore: $60,450.00

The “Miller” Slate money fueled all of the attack ads in support of the Mathias Campaign. Although a full disclosure breakdown is not published or publicly available, it is very easy to hide the actual amount of spending that was done in support of Mathias; but it can be estimated. The attack mailers (depicting a McDermott “300% Raise” which were shown to be false by the Daily Times and others) were not cheap. Their production costs coupled with a broad mailing directed at an estimated 35,000 households (it could be more) would cost between $ 20-30,000.

Six Attack Mailings @ $25,000 each is a total of $ 150,000.00

*(None of this is captured in the Mathias spending total)

The “Miller” Slate money also fueled all of the attack advertising broadcast on all of the cable and network television channels. Once again, it is difficult to estimate the production costs associated, but based upon the volume and timing (final 14-days of campaign) the cost can be estimated.

Television Attack Ads on Cable and Network Television could exceed $ 60,000.00

*(None of this is captured in the Mathias spending total)

Based upon spending totals reported by Mathias, it is estimated that he spent a minimum of $ 250,000.00 for television advertising from his own campaign funds.

To capture a true picture of the cost that Mathias and Miller paid to keep the District 38 Senate Seat in Democratic hands (or to keep McDermott out):

The total cost estimate on the Mathias Campaign:   

$ 791,676.00.00.

This would place the spending for the Mathias Campaign at $39.15 per vote received making it the most expensive per capita race in Maryland and one of the more expensive per capita races in the entire country.  You will never read about this in the local media as they will not take the time to simply review the Campaign Finance Reports that are readily available online with the Maryland State Board of Elections.  It is not often easy to navigate, but we use to call it “investigative reporting”.

Our next report will focus on those making the contributions. The special interest money is disturbing on many levels, and some of the individual donors give rise to the old adage of, “pay to play” when it comes to Maryland politics. We just did not expect as much from the Eastern Shore.