Many Statewide Candidates Feeling The Fund Raising Pinch

If you want to know where a politicians true allegiance really lies there is one sure place to look. Just follow the money. The money trail will bring you to the very essence of most political endeavors.

In the campaigns of 2015 more and more statewide candidates are finding that the money trail leads to a very familiar place, their own wallets and bank accounts.

LaPolitics.com publisher Jeremy Alford recently told the Louisiana Radio Network that while it's not unheard of for statewide candidates to reach into their own pockets to fund their campaigns it's becoming more and more common place.

But to see seven statewide candidates, including an incumbent and a regional office holder, to loan themselves money in a single fundraising quarter is pretty surprising.

Alford and his political blog research staff estimate that over the past three months candidates in statewide races in Louisiana have loaned their campaigns nearly $1.3 million. Alford says it's because fund raising is becoming harder and harder to do.

I've interviewed a couple of fundraisers and there telling me that the folks who are cutting checks are cutting smaller checks than usual.  There are some guys that they've talked to that said if they cut another check their wife was going to kill them.

Another influence in the state's campaign finance picture is the involvement of Political Action Committees or Super-PAC's as they are often called. These organizations allow donors to give large sums of money and are not subject to the scrutiny a direct campaign contribution might be.  These committees are taking money  out of the pool says Alford,

Candidates are seeing some of their top donors rather give gigantic checks to Super PACs, which can collect unlimited amounts of money, rather than nickel and diming it with their campaign.

Currently all three candidates for the position of Attorney General have turned to self funding for their campaigns. Maybe these tighter budgets and the fact that the politicos are having to spend their own money is the real reason this particular political season has seemed so quiet.