THE WORLD READS WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER — 8,324,077 VISITS IN ONE YEAR

WPCNR KING KOMMENTS. By Councilman William King. November 6, 2003: The County Board of Elections started to put campaign finance info for individual candidates and teams of candidates on the westchestergov.com website in 2001 but stopped (partial data for some candidates sprinkled around the county is still there).  Now I guess you still have to go into the Board of Elections office and request candidates’ finance statements (who contributed $100 or more to their campaigns and what the candidates spent their campaign funds on).  It’s interesting reading.
  All the reports are on file for candidates’ campaign warchests while they are open.  I haven’t perused them lately
but I may go over there and request some – there were some contributions from people in one party to a candidate in another party …. even a contribution from someone who subsequently got elected to another elected official in the opposite party.  If the Republicans really spent as much as you think they did, and that’s a staggering amount of money, even in a mayoral election year, there’s a lot of contributors behind all that money.  You should check out the finance records at the BoE tocheck your facts.

When I first ran as an independent I think I spent around $1,800, most of it my own. I think I got 1200-1300 votes.   I think my brother was my biggest contributor.  I spent more running with the big boys on the Democratic ticket the next election but combined we might have spent around $20K?    I think palm cards cost on the order of about $1,200 for 20,000 four years ago.  On the other end of the scale, Ted Dunn, the former Rye city mayor who ran against Andy Spano for County Exec, spent $1M of his own money in a losing effort.  The best bargain I found, but we didn’t do tv ads, was with News12 Westchester – surprisingly affordable, at least it was.

WPCNR CAMPAIGN 2003 CIRCUIT. By John F. Bailey. November 6, 2003: The White Plains Republican Party made a furious and expensive effort to gain Common Council seats Tuesday, and unseat County Legislator William Ryan, but the effort failed miserably. Estimates of the value of Republican campaign mailings, television commercials, and additional election materials, indicate that Republicans created materials and efforts estimated to cost approximately $200,000 or more.

In mailings alone, WPCNR counts 27 separate campaign mailings, each of which cost approximately $6,000 to $10,000 depending on the amounts mailed and the printing. For example, if each mailing went to the entire Republican registration (approximately 7,000, a correction from our previously stated figure of 13,000, simply an error on our part), and cost $6,000 each — even more if 4-color, that’s $162,000, the more expensive pieces could rachet that figure up past the $200,000 mark. If they mailed select Democrats in addition to the Republican lists, the cost goes up more.

Frank Cantatore sent out 11 mailings promoting his candidacy. There were 10 mailings promoting Messrs Binder, Sheehan, and Ms. Munoz. There were 6 mailing pieces promoting Binder and Sheehan and Cantatore. That does not count the palm cards which were printed up.

That basic estimated cost of doing those mailings alone indicates production and mailing costs of close to $200,000, and does not begin to count the cost of the recorded waves of telephone announcements used by Republicans to request votes on the phone, polling costs, and television commercials.

The Republicans should fire their pollsters since Republican leaders were in total shock Tuesday night as the Democrat tidal wave engulfed their forces early. According to sources at DG’s where the Republican wake was held, leaders were aghast as the Democratic numbers rolled in, making their poll figures look ludricris. Their polls had told them they had at least a shot at one seat. The results showed the pollsters were either being lied to by voters contacted, or the samplings were wrong.