Bloodbath and Bank Accounts

What's the GOP plan for the general election in the 6th District? Lynn Sweet got the answer from Rep. Henry Hyde:

I asked what he thought of the upcoming general election to fill his seat. It will be a "bloodbath," he said. I asked his guess for winner of the three-way Democratic primary. He figured Tammy Duckworth would win. In the end, he said the district is just too Republican for any Democratic to prevail and predicted his replacement would be state Sen. Peter Roskam (R-Wheaton) who will be the GOP nominee.

So 6th District Dems might be tempted to think that the only way to combat Roskam's out-of-district-funded fat bank account is with Hyde's pick for Democratic nominee -- the out-of-district candidate with the out-of-district-funded fat bank account.

But let's take a closer look at that account.

The FEC Disclosure Form for Friends of Tammy Duckworth (FTD) indicates that the big cash raised by the the campaign's out of district funders won't be used to fight off the GOP in the general election. Why? Because that money is already being spent right now to combat Christine Cegelis' grassroots campaign.

The Detailed Summary Page of FTD's disclosure indicates that its total receipts for this period were $396,828 (see line 16, column 'A') and the total disbursments for this period were $379,943 (see line 22, column 'A'). By dividing the disbursments by the receipts, we can see that over 95% of the money FTD raised for the campaign in the first three months of 2006 has already been spent -- spent to bump-off the local Democratic candidates.

So at this rate, regardless of who wins the primary, the Democratic candidate will pretty much have to start building up the bank account from scratch -- but some candidates would be building their local organizing for November's "bloodbath" from scratch as well.