Mahoney outspent Driscoll in final lap
Her expenditures topped Driscoll's by more than 3-to-1 as race was ending.
By John Mariani
Staff writer
Challenger Joanie Mahoney raised nearly twice as much non-party money as incumbent Matt Driscoll and outspent him by more than a 3-to-1 ratio during the closing stretch of Syracuse's race for mayor.
The pace of last-ditch political fundraising and spending was revealed Monday as
Driscoll's Foundation for the Future and the Joanie Mahoney for Mayor committee filed their latest campaign finance reports with the Onondaga County Board of Elections.
Driscoll, a Democrat, defeated Mahoney, a Republican, in the Nov. 8 election.
The reports showed Mahoney's committee raised $86,248 on or after Oct. 29, more than one-quarter of the $326,867 it raised during the entire campaign. Starting Oct. 29, it spent $190,615, paying out in the campaign's last 10 days almost as much as it had spent in the previous three months.
More than $144,000 of Mahoney's last-ditch spending went to media consultant Jack Cookfair to produce and buy airtime for television ads. An additional $33,000 went toward mail ads and postage.
Some ads touted the candidate's platform and personality, while others were meant to counter Driscoll advertising that criticized Mahoney for purportedly accepting more than $60,000 in contributions from Destiny USA partners and associates.
Driscoll's committee, meanwhile, raised $49,273 and spent $52,484 on or after Oct. 24, the start of its report. Those totals were about a 10th of the $496,837 it raised and $528,749 it spent over the four years since Driscoll was sworn in for his first full term as mayor.
Foundation for the Future's latest report listed $22,618 in advertising expenses, $10,820 for printing and $3,719 in postage. Driscoll's media consultant, Mullen & Co., was paid $3,100.
Driscoll and Mahoney's fundraising totals don't reflect the thousands of dollars that Democratic and Republican party committees transferred into their campaign accounts.
Citizens for a Greater Syracuse, the Onondaga County Democratic Committee's fundraising arm, plunked $60,000 into Driscoll's coffers in the campaign's waning days. The Mahoney camp received $11,000 from the county Republican Committee, $10,000 from the state GOP and $375 from the City of Syracuse Republican Committee.
Thanks to those and previous party contributions, Foundation for the Future came out of the election with a balance of $80,092, while Joanie Mahoney for Mayor had $33,590 in the bank.
These reports also do not reflect spending by other organizations.
For example, Empire State ABC PAC, the political action committee of the Empire State Chapter of Associated Builders & Contractors Inc., spent $30,000 to produce radio and television advertisements and
$26,699 to get them aired during the weekend before the election, that committee's filing shows.
The ads showed images of a desolate Syracuse and urged residents, without naming candidates, to make a change in city government.
During the same period, partners and companies associated with the Destiny USA project contributed at least $44,023 to the PAC, its report indicates. Chapter President Rebecca Meinking said the group planned the ad campaign, then contacted members, including Destiny associates, to raise money.
Altogether, Driscoll, Mahoney and Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins raised $825,952 for the 2005 mayoral race and spent $927,349, according to a Post-Standard analysis of their reports. The Green Party raised and spent $2,248 in Hawkins' behalf, meaning his major-party rivals raised and spent almost all of the money in the race.
Driscoll racked up 16,470 votes, or 49.7 percent, to Mahoney's 15,110 (45.6 percent) and Hawkins' 1,551 (4.7 percent) in the Nov. 8 election, according to the election board's certified results.
Posted by syracusegreens at December 7, 2005 02:31 AM