The July Quarterly FEC finance report for Kathleen Williams was released on July 15.
It’s 470-pages long and covers the period May 17 to June 30.
Williams brought in $502,000 for the period and spent about $130,000. She had $462,000 in cash as July began.
Williams currently has no debts.
We know that of her total fundraising for the period, $361,000 came from individuals while about $23,000 came from PACs.
I’m not going to get into the individual contributions because they take up 442 pages of the report.
If I was being paid by Gianforte, I would go through those names, finding what dirt I could. Certainly some big Democratic names would make good fodder in the campaign fundraising emails, as well as how much is coming from out-of-state.
The same could be said for Williams’ staff going through Gianforte’s FEC reports. That might be more damning, as I bet Gianforte has more out-of-state contributions than Williams.
You’d have to wade through hundreds of pages of donations to find out, however, and I’m not doing that.
It’s just good campaigning. So get on it, campaigns.
Now…the spending.
Here’s some stuff that stood out to me:
- $69,600 to Santa Monica’s Behr Communications for a media buy
- $13,600 to San Francisco’s BaughmanMerrill for printing and postage
- $2,100 to Colorado’s 4degrees, Inc. for digital media ads
- $1,755 to Maryland’s Winpisinger & Associates for compliance consulting
So that’s nearly $90,000 in out-of-state spending…money that Williams could easily have spent here.
In addition to that spending, we also see who Williams has on staff:
- Andrew Markoff: $3,608 a month in salary
- Everett Johnston: $2,067
- Kelvin Stallings: $1,582
- Mari Messinger: $1,948
- Rebecca Reilly: $578
In addition to that, Williams had to pay $3,158 in payroll taxes for those employees for the six weeks the report covered.
In all, it costs Williams over $10,000 a month to keep her five staffers on staff. Two of those staffers don’t even live in Montana: Markoff is living in New York while Reilly is in Seattle.
If they were living in Montana they’d have a Montana address listed under their name on the FEC report…like the other three staffers do.
Pray tell…with your highest-paid staffer coming from New York…how can you possibly lose?
We’re not going to get the PAC donations in this recent report, so we’ll go back to the FEC pages, find Williams’ committee, and search out the “other committee contributions,” which total $33,850.
Only about one-third of that amount is actually listed, however:
- $5,000 from United Transportation Union PAC
- $2,500 from Population Connection Action Fund PAC
- $2,000 from Baird for Congress
- $1,500 from Caesars Entertainment Corporation PAC
What is all this stuff?
- The union contribution comes from a 70,000-strong union that represents bus drivers, airline workers and other mass transit employees.
- The Population Connection PAC is a group that works towards family planning and reproductive rights.
- Brian Baird was a U.S. Rep from Washington State that decided not to run again in 2010. He had a lot of money left over in his campaign warchest, however, and decided to kick that down to some up-and-comers…like Kathleen Williams. I personally call this a form of political money laundering, and feel it should be illegal. Charities would benefit a lot more from that money than politicians.
- Finally, the donation from Caesars comes from a Nevada-based company that owns over 50 casinos and 7 golf courses
I don’t really have a problem with any of those donations. Hell, Montana relies on gambling revenues. We brought in $15 million in the first quarter of this year, in fact.
What gets me most of all is the spending. I see that Kathleen Williams is going down the exact same road that Lewis, Juneau, and Quist went down.
And that’s a losing road.
It’s just very frustrating to see this out-of-state spending, as there’s simply no reason for it.
Frustrated with Rob Quist doing the same thing last May, I told you about a dozen Montana media companies that Democrats could be spending their money with.
Check out Strategies for Running a Statewide Campaign to see the list of companies…businesses like Bozeman’s JTech Communications for web design, or Missoula’s OutBound Digital for digital marketing, or the countless local printing and postage businesses around the state.
But those Montana companies simply aren’t good enough for Kathleen Williams…or any Democratic statewide candidates.
And I feel the Montana Democratic Party pressures the primary winners to go with their handpicked companies. We see many different statewide candidates use the same companies year after year, in fact.
Perhaps there’s some kind of deal worked out with those out-of-state companies and the MT Dem Party, or maybe just old friends and cohorts working there.
Regardless, year after year we see Dems continue to spend big money with out-of-state companies…and then what happens? They lose.
In that regard, I guess those out-of-state media companies weren’t that good after all, were they?
That’s why I feel if you’re going to spend the money, spend it here in Montana, where it’ll create Montana jobs and help Montana families.
Isn't that why you're running?
Sadly, but coming as no surprise, Williams chose to help out Colorado, California and Maryland families…not those in the Treasure State.
Why, Kathleen…why?!?
Notes
“Brian Baird.” Wikipedia. 8 July 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Baird
“Quarterly Summary.” Montana Department of Justice Gambling Control Division. Retrieved 26 July 2018. https://dojmt.gov/gaming/gambling-statistics-and-reports/
“Williams for Montana FEC Form 3, Report of Receipts and Disbursements.” Federal Election Commission. 15 July 2018. http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/294/201807159115544294/201807159115544294.pdf#navpanes=0
“Williams for Montana Other Committee Contributions, Receipts.” Federal Election Commission. Retrieved 26 July 2018. https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?two_year_transaction_period=2018&cycle=2018&data_type=processed&committee_id=C00659177&min_date=01%2F01%2F2017&max_date=07%2F26%2F2018&line_number=F3-11C
