My last post on the Fourth Circuit judicial races alluded to the bona fides of Jim Daniel. He’s a likeable, experienced attorney and easily holds his own with those candidates running in the other Groups.
The thing with Jim’s campaign, however, is that, as of today, he is running unopposed, thereby denying any real testing of his true meddle and spunk. It’s looking like a smooth cruise ride for Jim down 17, through Orange Park and into Green Cove Springs, right up to the newly expanded and remodeled Clay County Courthouse (on the right, just before you get to the Huddle House).
Good for you, Jim. You absolutely deserve it. I’ll be happy to argue motions in front of you, knowing that even if you rule against me, you will have done so with grace, reason and aplomb.
So what’s the point in this post? Well, as I said above, Jim is running unopposed. Even with opposition, he’d probably be a shoe-in. Then why on earth did he feel the need to donate $100,000.00 of his own money on New Year’s Eve to his campaign? He’d already amassed $16,000.00 in donations by the end of last year. And why the need for the fundraiser he’s holding on February 28th at the Fraternal Order of Police? YOU ARE RUNNING UNOPPOSED!
By comparison, in the 2006 judicial races, Jeff Marrow raised a total of $182,000.00 in his competitive race against Libby Senterfitt, who raised $154,000.00 (and won). John Merrett won his seat against three competitors with only $171,000.00. Yet, here’s Jim with over $116,000.00 without competition and nine months from the election.
Now before I offer an opinion on the above, note that I am not opposed to a candidate loaning him or herself money to run a race. Virginia Norton is shelling out $40,000.00 of her own money in her competitive race against, Frederic Buttner, III, who lent his campaign $10,000.00. As blogged previously, Adrian Soud wrote himself a check for $50,000.00. The contributions of Adrian’s opponents are unknown as they only just this year filed the papers to run.
On a grander scale, Hillary Clinton reached into her retirement fund and extracted $5 million. Mitt Romney dipped into his children’s trust fund for nearly $20 million, which, as it turns out, would have been better spent being donated to the Benevolent Country Club Association. And then there’s Michael Bloomberg. He spent close to $140 million on his two mayoral campaigns to buy a bed in Gracie Mansion only to now just use this beautiful estate for ceremonial occasions and guest accommodations.
Okay, so it’s not these personal “loans” that keep me up at night, so long as the money is necessary to stay competitive in a close race. My problem is when money, especially as much as $100,000.00 in a local race, is “loaned” to an uncontested campaign where it is unlikely that even a cent will need to be spent.
Making such a loan tells me one of two things – either Jim (or any other like candidate) is expecting some big time player to enter his race, and so is amassing as much as possible for what may be an expensive battle – or, he’s telling the rest of those folks in the Fourth Circuit, “Don’t even think about running against me!”
I’m fine with the former strategy. It goes hand in hand with what one needs to do to stay competitive. But the latter strategy just smells a bit. By pricing out the competition, the right to choose is being taken away from the voters. The Democratic process has been stunted. Arguably, we will never know who the most qualified candidate is because that person or persons has now been preemptively priced out of the race. It will now be impossible for Jim to ever say he won his seat on his merits. Simply, the election was purchased.
We’ll see what happens as the weeks pass. Someone might actually come forward and challenge Jim, in which case this post will be moot and Jim will have to hit the pavement and explain to the nice folks in the Fourth Circuit why he’s the best person for the job. While I may know Jim somewhat professionally, I'd still like to hear more from him about his qualifications and judicial intentions. Without the competition, people won't get to learn any of this and so will be voting blindly, if at all, for what I would consider a stealth candidate.
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With the alsmost exception of Bob Harms (and maybe Clay Yarborough) we have pretty much proved that the more money you have (expecially if it is a lot more), the more likely you are to win an elected position. Not that this is a local thing.
Because you can net voters with the money raised and because you can count on underfunded opponents not reaching people, then you pretty much don't need to go out on any kind of limb during an election. Stay in the middle, raise a bunch of money, and you are in. The voters, all 8 to 12 % of them most likely are in your corner because you could afford to reach them. It fosters the apathy that effects the turnout, the turnout fosters the same old kind of official, and the same old kind of official behaves like we expected them to, thus lowering any faith in the leadership or vote. This has got to change.
I did hear this judge candidate was probably the best for the job from a trusted and knowledgable source. Too bad he felt he had to hedge his bets.
Bloomberg pays himself $1 per year btw. Maybe we could reduce the pay by the amount you loan yourself over the campaign. Would this judge start his job $100k in the hole or would he just take his chances knowing he is the best candidate anyway?
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