Following campaign finances is always a lot of fun. Here are some of what shakes out of the McCaskill campaign financials.
In August and September, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee started sending large sums of money into the Missouri Democratic Campaign Committee’s federal campaign account.
Out of the Missouri Democratic State Committee’s federal campaign account,“Bowman’s Consulting” received $10,580 on 9/1/06, and then $6,000 on each date of 9/14, 10/02, 10/16, 10/31 and 11/15; and $10,000 on 11/16.
“Bowman’s Consulting” was filed as a business by state Rep. John L. Bowman with the Missouri Secretary of State on April 7. That is a lot of jack that Bowman raked in to deliver the vote.
He spread it around a bit, though unevenly. Friends of Bowman – including Ingrid Owens, Sammie Jones, Errol Bush, Zach Keys and April Ford-Griffin – were hired for rates considerably higher than the average canvasser. He even kept it in the family, paying daughter Sloan and son John higher amounts than the average operative.
From this, we can expect that Bowman is preparing for a run at higher office, presumably the state Senate. Bowman also is working on being the go-to person in 2008, when money flows again into the state from those national coffers.
In the meantime, let’s hope the bad guys don’t find any dead people in these finance reports, claiming to be canvassers and registered voters in St. Louis city. The 2000 election scandal was fraught with addresses not matching registered voters. Slop like that gives Republicans cover when they float their voter ID bills designed to keep poor, old and black people from casting their votes for Democrats. We will see a version of that bill again this year, and we’ll get to see if Jeff Smith – who called on state legislators to filibuster this year – will be as good as his word. Whatever he does, let’s hope he does it more decisively than he has handled Donayle-gate.