If Martin Ozinga is opting to fundraise the cash to run his campaign for Congress as opposed to dipping into his personal wealth to fund the bid, he's certainly off to a hot start. From an Ozinga press release:
The campaign of 11th Congressional District GOP nominee Marty Ozinga announced Thursday that it had raised $446,035 since the beginning of April through April 30, the date upon which Ozinga was chosen to replace Tim Baldermann on the ballot. The campaign announced a total raised of $408,235 on Wednesday morning, but the overwhelming level of support the campaign is experiencing continued throughout the day.
Ozinga's Democratic opponent, career politician and Blagojevich rubber-stamp Debbie Halvorson, reported raising $427,374 over the first three and a half months of her campaign, when she was unopposed in the primary and was the guaranteed Democratic nominee. Ozinga raised almost $20,000 more than that, and he did it in three and a half weeks without having been slated on the ballot yet.
That's an impressive total over a rather short period of time. And even more impressive when considering the the mad scramble that followed Baldermann's drop from the contest.
Capitol Fax Blog's Rich Miller adds some perspective to Ozinga's large total:
Early fundraising is usually the easiest because the cash is often from friends and family. We also don't know how many of those early contributors maxed out, and, therefore, will not be allowed to contribute again.
We'll have to wait for the next reporting deadline to know more.
Also, Ozinga does score some creative points for his unconventional campaign website URL:www.iamnotapolitician.com.
