This week was probably the busiest yet for me, between the fundraiser, working on the
finishing touches of the Roy Hunt flyer, and getting everything ready for Pride, I would say I
probably put about 25 hours into the campaign. I did however, underestimate that a bit on my
time log because there was a lot of driving and downtime and I wanted to give the campaign 80
hours of productive work not 60 hours of productivity and 20 hours of my time spent driving and
waiting on a file to download or getting distracted.
This was the last full week that we would be able to collect donations before the deadline
for the second quarter. The main focus of this week by the whole campaign was raising money.
We want to be able to finish first in fundraising in our district to solidify an endorsement by the firefighters and the Saint Pete Times. Sadly, fundraising is a key factor when these groups decide to endorse a candidate, instead of issues and accountability being most important and finance being a secondary thing. In the coming weeks I foresee a rash of pointless posts on the baybuzz blog focused solely on money; belittling those with too little and berating those with too much. This is a trend I have already seen simply with their calling out of candidates who did not pay the filing fees due to hardships, and I think it will only get worse when they start talking about how much was raised. I don’t even want to think about the comments that will come out of those posts either. The candidates with too little money are inept and can’t be trusted with the budget, those with money will be power hungry and in it to champion themselves instead of represent their district and city.
We are pretty confidant that we will be able to beat Joe Smith in fundraising, but are not as
confidant with Angela Rouson. I’m interested in seeing where we stand after these last few
fundraisers and the parade. I know our number is somewhere around $20,000 but I don’t know
the exact number nor do I know what the other candidates have raised. I’m really excited about
our fundraising class coming up next week, I hope I can learn a few things to bring back to the
team to make our next quarter the best yet as far as fundraising.
