With just days remaining before the primary, there is no doubt that Nutter has all the momentum in the race. It appears he's on his way to winning the Democratic nomination for mayor on Tuesday, or at least coming awfully close. His campaign is surging in the polls, has won a string of media endorsements and is blowing away everyone else's fundraising.

Like in sports, political candidates want to hit their peak on the day of the big game, but Nutter's the only one who seems to be moving forward and gaining steam as the campaign heads into its final days.Brady, Evans and Fattah seem stuck well behind the two leaders, and Knox is trying to hold steady since there isn't much more room to grow.

Now, it is true that weeks ago, I ripped the Nutter campaign for being listless and missing opportunities.It was, and it did.But it's making up for it now.Make no mistake about it: A good campaign focuses on not only creating momentum, but making sure it gets lots of public attention. There are two reasons why this is so important.

The first: Most voters tune in to the contest toward the end, so the candidate generating the most buzz will get the most late attention, which helps him attract voters. (Except, of course, for Knox, who is receiving only unwanted attention.)

It's also important because the undecided voters frequently follow the pack and vote for whomever they think is going to be victorious.Essentially, they want to be with the winner.

With the large number of undecided voters remaining in this election — according to the most recent polls, the numbers may be as high as 30 percent of all voters — being seen as the candidate who has all the buzz is a great thing.That candidate should pick up, at a minimum, a plurality of the remaining undecideds' votes.

But only two candidates are running what I would consider momentum campaigns: Nutter and Fattah.(Knox is losing his momentum because he isn't doin...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/05/03/welcome-to-the-bigs-tom http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/05/03/welcome-to-the-bigs-tom At last! It has finally started and, for that, we should all be glad. By "it," I mean the negative or "comparative" portion of the mayoral campaign. And thank God for it.

You may be wondering why I am so happy that candidates have started to attack each other. Well, because it's the only way for voters to get a real read on which candidates are actually qualified to lead this city.

I know lots of people say they want candidates to remain focused only on their qualities and qualifications for the job — taking the so-called "high road." But every candidate is not a perfect fit for every elected office, and there is no way a candidate is going to point out his own flaws.

The media will try to do what it can, but relying on it to draw sharp distinctions is not a good idea.Reporters, especially these days, are too often stretched too thin to do any real investigative work and, as such, rely on information that is already part of the public record. Even when they are able to get to an issue, they tend to do a single story that is little more than a little bit of research, followed up by asking the candidate why he did whatever it is he supposedly did.Moreover, absent any new news qualifying as an update, a newspaper is not going to repeat the story ad nauseam.

So, it is up to candidates to draw the real contrasts between themselves and their rivals — and that means being negative.

To date, most of the attacks have been directed at the front-runner, Tom Knox. During the past week, Knox has come under attack from Bob Brady, Dwight Evans, a couple of supposedly independent committees and someone named "Tommy" dressed in a shark costume. That Knox would come under attack is to be expected since he's leading in the polls with only a few weeks remaining. After all, the only way to get to the top is by climbing over others, and he is standing in the way of everyone else.

Now, I'm going to ignore the idiocy of the supposedly independent groups that have popped up to attack Knox — not because having an independent committee launch an attack is the wrong idea, but because they are doing it so poorly.Seriously, ...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/04/26/money-for-nothing http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/04/26/money-for-nothing If a candidate has little institutional support, how does he build and/or buy a get-out-the-vote operation on election day?

The starting point for every campaign's booth-filling push has to be its volunteers, since there are countless envelopes to stuff, phone calls to make, doors to knock on and campaign literature to distribute.

That backbone of the effort should be done on a volunteer basis, primarily because they represent free (OK, cheap) labor with a real zeal for the candidate. This is why campaigns spend a significant amount of time and effort attracting and training volunteers. In fact, they usually have at least one person specifically tasked with recruitment and maintenance of a volunteer team. (In the pre-election months, these volunteer coordinators develop plans to both attract volunteers and engage them in the campaign.)

On election day, volunteers will fan out across the city to do one last swing through the neighborhoods. They're knocking on doors, dragging people out of their homes, driving them to the polls and doing anything else necessary — this includes tasks like standing on the side of the road with signs reminding people to vote.

Still, most candidates cannot rely on volunteers alone. There simply are not enough of them, and those who are willing to help out frequently either do not have the skills to take on larger tasks, or cannot commit enough time. That means there's a need for a paid staff. And that takes money — often referred to as street money.

Many regular volunteers are paid on election day — they should be compensated for their hard work — but there is a whole different group of people who do work only if they are compensated.

Some ward leaders and third-party groups promise to help a candidate if their committeepeople get paid (forget, for a moment, that as committeepeople, their job is to get out the vote). Good ward leaders take money only to pay for expenses, while the truly bad ones take cash for their people (and their own cut) but never disclose what happened to any of it. And, yes, it is always cash. No traceable checks here, folks...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/04/19/endorsement-check http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/04/19/endorsement-check You hear a lot about them from the mayoral candidates, and you're only going to hear more as the campaign winds into its waning days. They're endorsements. As in, so-and-so got endorsed by this union or that union. Or, such-and-such civic group is speaking up for candidate A while candidate B got the backing of a big-time politician.

Still to come, however, are the supposedly big-ticket endorsements of the two daily newspapers and the major minority outlets.

But what do they really mean? How does a candidate get them? Which do they want? And, how do they use them to their advantage? Well, candidates seek endorsements for three reasons: money, manpower and credibility.

Endorsements, particularly from unions, often come with the promise of a campaign donation. Under the old financing rules, some union endorsements came with a six-figure check; but even today, with every campaign laboring under the new campaign finance restrictions, every last check helps. Other endorsements come with the promise of fundraising help, if not direct aid. Usually, the endorsing group will send out a letter to its members or host a fundraising event.

Winning an endorsement can also bring the promise of manpower to help get out the vote on election day. This is where earning union endorsements is especially important: Any election day help, no matter how much it costs, does not count against the fundraising limits. But even some smaller groups — like Liberty City — are extremely helpful at working the polls for their preferred candidates.

The final reason to seek an endorsement is the credibility it gives a candidate among the voters. It is easier for many voters to make connection with a candidate if someone else they know and respect is backing him; it basically becomes the Good Housekeeping seal of approval.

So, how does a candidate get one of these important endorsements? The first and most obvious way is to have been a longtime supporter of whatever issue(s) the endorsing group cares about.

Oppose free trade and support an increase in the minimum wage? Always easier to get a union endorsement. Longt...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/04/12/the-shilling-fields http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/04/12/the-shilling-fields During the past five months, mayoral candidates and campaign staffers have been running across the city attending forums, raising money, announcing policy papers, accepting endorsements, raising more money, recruiting volunteers, filming television commercials, shaking hands with voters at SEPTA stops and raising even more money.

But with just five weeks remaining until election day, what are the campaigns doing right now? They are finalizing plans for their get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operations.

It's a critical part of any campaign because all of the voters needed to win can't be expected to get to the polls by themselves.We'd all like to believe that — upon inspiration by democracy, and the candidates' messages and experience — voters would flock to the polls, but campaigns have to drag people there.

In addition to omnipresent television and radio ads, voters will be inundated with pieces of direct mail, automated phone calls and doorstep visits.All are designed to ensure that a candidate's supporters get to the polls. If voters are unable to get there themselves — whether because they are infirm or do not have a ride — the campaigns will get them an absentee ballot or arrange for someone to pick them up. But not every voter will be contacted by every campaign for the simple reason that every campaign does not want every voter to come to the polls.They want only the people who are going to vote for them.

Targeting these voters is part science and part art, which is why the people responsible for turning out the vote on election day — field directors — are often called "generals."Good field operations in a campaign this size are massive, with thousands of people involved.

Planning is intensive and the logistics are intimidating since good field plans must operate with precision. Food has to be bought for all election day workers.Canvassers need flashlights and clipboards. Vans need to be rented to bring workers to targeted areas and to drive voters to the polls. And drivers need to be identified and trained.

At about 6 a.m. on election day, volunteers will gather at staging s...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/04/05/the-brady-crunch http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/04/05/the-brady-crunch I'll bet anyone $100 that Bob Brady and his supporters never thought they'd have as much campaign trouble as they're currently having. When Brady was first pushed in by both Vince Fumo's machinations and Jonathan Saidel's surprise decision to drop out, Brady seemed poised to thunder into contention, most likely making the race between him and his congressional compatriot, Chaka Fattah.

Instead, his campaign has been beset by problems, some inherent in his candidacy, but far too many of his own making. Let's start with the recent spate of problems connected to his financial-interest statement and Tom Knox's efforts to get him kicked off the ballot.Whether through commission or omission, Brady failed to list the pension he receives from the city.Should he be kicked off the ballot for that?Probably not.But the damage to his campaign has been deep.

First, his campaign looked like a gang that couldn't shoot straight when it first said that this was a mistake, and then that is was not a mistake.Then, on the stand under oath during the hearing, his rambling and evasive responses did far more damage than a week of media coverage questioning his mental capacity could.

Then, there's the issue of his pension from the carpenters, which grows by more than $1,000 monthly even though testimony at the hearing revealed he does little, or no, real work for it.Should that be investigated? Probably, but since District Attorney Lynne Abraham recently endorsed Brady, don't count on it.

There's also the fact that his wife earns six figures being an office manager for a company that won a no-bid contract from the city, a company owned by one of Brady's chief fundraisers and a close Fumo ally. Seems a little cushy, right?Unfortunately, these arrangements are too typical. And that's the inherent problem with Brady's candidacy: He is an ultimate insider and deal broker in a year voters want change.

His campaign has tried to acknowledge that up front and turn weakness into strength by saying he brings people together.But the changing theme of their campaign — "Bob Brady works" — is a cloying, hackneyed catchphrase that doesn't t...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/03/29/is-it-still-chakas-to-lose http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/03/29/is-it-still-chakas-to-lose Having already examined the campaigns of Tom Knox, Michael Nutter and Dwight Evans in previous columns, this week's focus turns toward U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah. (Next week, the final candidate, Bob Brady, will get the same treatment — if he doesn't get knocked off the ballot, of course.)

From the earliest days that his name was floated in the mayoral race, Fattah's campaign has always been predicated on one simple stance: He can win. No one discussed whether he should be mayor, but rather whether he wanted to run because if he ran, he would win.

Insiders said it.

The media said it.

Even Fattah said it.

Some correctly called that arrogance on Fattah's part. After all, voters have the final say and plenty of "sure things" in January become stone-cold losers by May. But with just over seven weeks remaining before the primary, and the polls still listing him up high, the race looks like it remains his to lose.

Fattah's campaign began when he announced an exploratory effort last summer, not when he met the legal definition of "candidate." He has since done a number of things right — starting with running that exploratory effort, which built the basis for his campaign.He used it to develop policy, a Web site and a team of advisers.It was a cynical, but smart, move.

On policy, Fattah clearly loves the role of wonk as much as Nutter and Evans. His policy platform has been the broadest of the bunch, even if little of it has a chance of being enacted given the fiscal realities the city faces.But from the entirety of his policies, it is clear that he understands local needs and city government, which had been a question mark about his candidacy at the onset.

Fattah has had a relatively smooth ride with the media, although he and his staff would likely disagree.But if Fattah wants to know what bad coverage feels like, he should ask John Street about the last 20 years, or Bob Brady about the last two weeks.Fattah took some shots for how he handled his exploratory committee, his response to questions about his educational background and for steering federal dollars to org...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/03/22/dwights-plight http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/03/22/dwights-plight It is impossible to think about a campaign and a candidate without reviewing the totality of their actions. In a well-run campaign, almost everything a candidate does and says is targeted toward assembling enough votes to win on election day. So why is it that Dwight Evans is doing so many things right, but so few people seem to be noticing?

Evans is perfectly positioned on the issues. His long record of fighting gun violence — the No. 1 issue among voters, according to polls — is unparalleled in the race. He has a real record of fiscal discipline at a time when the city faces tight fiscal fortunes. He has a record of working with Democrats and Republicans to get things done. Even difficult things, such as the takeover of the schools.

Evans gathered more signatures on his petitions than any other mayoral candidate aside from Bob Brady, who had almost the entire Democratic ward structure behind him. This shows real organizational muscle. It's even more impressive when you consider that Tom Knox was reportedly paying people $2 for every valid signature they brought in.

He has hired a real team of campaign professionals, including media consultant Steve Murphy. His television ads, which aren't on enough, look good.

Evans has racked up some impressive initial third-party endorsements, including support from unions and the Black Clergy. The fact that Evans didn't win the police endorsement just shows that their decision was based on which candidate would do the most for them as a union, not which candidate would do the most to improve public safety.

Evans is taking on the power structure of the city in a way that is impressive and needed at a time when people are fed up with business as usual. This is doubly impressive when you consider that attacking Brady and the Democratic City Committee the way he has carries a real risk to his own candidacy.

With regular video blogs and chats and a great-looking site, Evans is using the Internet far better than Tom Knox, whose media maven Joe Trippi would presumably have had Knox lead the way.

So why is no one noticing? In every poll I have seen, Evans s...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/03/15/mike-checked http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/03/15/mike-checked Where do you start explaining what's gone wrong with Michael Nutter's once-promising campaign?

He's been a clear advocate of change in a year when an overwhelming majority of voters want change. He's been a longtime supporter of government and ethics reform at a time when 76 percent of city residents believe, according to a recent poll, that government is "pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themselves." He believes in economic development and tax cuts — Nutter's the only candidate who has a real claim to the "tax-cutter" mantle — and also has serious neighborhood cred because of his successes in the 4th Councilmanic District.

He is clearly smart. He clearly loves the city. And he clearly knows city government, probably better than any of the other candidates; he understands that the real problems facing the city need to be addressed, even if they don't get as much attention from the media or the public. And, he has raised enough money — under the limits and without using gimmicks — to be considered a top-flight challenger.

But despite all those apparent positives, his campaign appears to be floundering. He's drifting from irrelevant fights with someone who is not running again (Street, John) to fights with someone who may literally be insane (Street, Milton).

His campaign puts out press releases that are so cloying they border on painful. (If you have to note that a statement was made "tongue in cheek," you have written the statement incorrectly.) Sure, his policy papers are about real issues that need to be dealt with, but this is an election. Nutter needs to make his appeal more broadly. Too many of his policy papers are targeted to people who know and understand how government really works — which means they are not targeted to the other 95 percent of the population. I mean, where is his policy paper on tax cuts and business development? What is his plan for neighborhood economic development?

I hear almost no buzz about Nutter's campaign other than people wondering what's going on. That's a bad sign.

People wonder when he is going on tel...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/03/08/could-tom-cruise-to-victory http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/03/08/could-tom-cruise-to-victory In a well-run campaign, almost everything a candidate does is targeted toward assembling enough votes to win. In a poorly run campaign, there is little rhyme or reason why candidates are (or are not) doing something. So, for the next five weeks, I will attempt to explain why candidates are (or are not) doing certain things.

We'll start with Tom Knox, who has come from nowhere to second place on the strength of television ads.

Knox is running as a reformer and someone who is "outside the system" (and therefore presumably uncorrupted by it). This is the right move given how many voters believe government is not working for the people, but for special interests. As reported by the Inquirer, "Seventy-six percent [of poll respondents] said city government was 'pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themselves.' Fifty-three percent said city officials 'waste a lot of money.' Half said 'quite a few' officials were corrupt."

On one level, Knox's reformer credentials are undercut by the fact that he actually is an insider — he was deputy mayor to Ed Rendell and a major campaign donor — and that he made his money through payday lending and the insurance industry. But since he is the only candidate with any significant money to put their message on television and radio, the reformer image will be hard for others to take away. Which means his decision to go up on television early was the right move.

Because he has been up on air for so long with ads about his biography, reform and crime, and no one has countered with negative ads, he can create whatever public persona he wants. The newest Knox ad also deftly takes away Chaka Fattah's key campaign theme of "opportunity" by prominently promising "opportunity for Philadelphia's young people." (Well done.)

Knox is also largely letting his television ads do the talking for him, which is key given his wooden and sometimes still-shaky stump performance. Yes, he appears at debates and forums — he has to — but has otherwise largely appeared only at tightly controlled, campaign-sponsored events. He does not hold many — or any that I ...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/03/01/burn-brady-burn http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/03/01/burn-brady-burn You hear about it all the time during election season — campaigns "going negative." Critics and government reformers moan about the attacks. Insiders, who claim to have known about the allegations "for years," love them. And voters pay attention to them, even though most of what people call "negative" really isn't, while some of the things that are negative slip under the radar.

Why do candidates go negative? Not just because it works — and, if done well, it does — but because it sets up a fundamental contrast. It's impossible for voters to determine which candidate is better suited for an office if all they ever hear is that the person likes jobs, good schools and a chicken in every pot.

Yet every candidate can't be qualified, and every plan can't actually work. Voters don't have enough time to sort through all the competing proposals and compare them against the facts and a candidate's record. The media is supposed to do some of this for voters, but they usually don't because they are just as obsessed with insider baseball and the horse race as other insiders. Besides, they just don't have enough staff to do it right these days; blogs are filling some of the void, but they can be hit-or-miss. So, it is up to candidates to help voters figure out the differences.

Is it negative to question candidates' qualifications, assertions they have made, or their record? Of course not, even if many believe such an ad would be inherently critical.

There is a difference between what campaigns call a "comparative" and a truly negative ad. If an ad factually addresses an opponent's record and makes a contrast to the candidate's own record or agenda, that's all fair. But if it attacks an opponent's character or his truthfulness, it is pretty negative. (A great example is the "jailhouse" ad Rick Santorum ran against Bob Casey in which actors portrayed some of Casey's donors behind bars.)

Questioning an opponent's record is something that has to be done; it's an effective tool in a campaign's arsenal. Such attacks work because it's human nature to discount the good things you hear about someone and believe the ba...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/02/22/message-in-a-battle http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/02/22/message-in-a-battle Among the attributes people tout about a candidate is the strength of his or her "message."

One of the most potent parts of a campaign, the message is what voters take into the booth with them — their impressions of, likes and dislikes about, and reasons to vote for or against someone.

Sometimes, candidates' biographies serve as their message. (For instance, they may have grown up poor and made something of themselves.) Other times, they want people to remember their accomplishments or their agenda for the future. Of course, a good candidate wants to combine all of these tracts into one cohesive message. But not many of them do.

Candidates have to take their natural strengths and try to appeal their message to voters, which can be tricky. An interesting way to look at these messages and how they're crafted is to consider whom they are trying to target.

Since there literally is no such thing as appealing to all black people or all white people, or to every member of any group (although insiders often talk as if there is), candidates must tailor their message to those from whom they're trying to get votes.

A friend — whose opinion I respect — describes races as being about the many versus the few. In some cases, candidates have to appeal to a broad cross section of voters; in others, they need only a portion. How large a portion depends, in large part, on how many candidates there are.

In a strict mathematical sense, all you have to do is win one vote more than the next guy, so if there are five candidates in the race, you need to appeal to only 21 percent of voters. So, in a one-on-one race, a candidate needs a broader message to capture a majority.

For example, in Republican politics, a candidate may call for tax cuts, which is a broad-based issue that almost every Republican cares about. Another may focus on abortion or bashing gays, because a motivated minority of the voting population cares about such issues.

Take that thought and translate it to the current mayoral field. Which candidates are preaching to the many, and which are speaking to the few?

Bob ...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/02/15/how-to-lasso-a-voter http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/02/15/how-to-lasso-a-voter With just three months until the mayoral primary, campaigns are shifting toward developing field teams to bring out the vote on election day. Get Out the Vote (GOTV) is literally the last thing a campaign does, but it is something all good campaigns begin to plan for months, if not years, in advance.

There are three main components to running a successful field campaign:

• Identify who is likely to vote for your candidate.

• Make sure that they can vote for your candidate — i.e. they are registered to vote.

• And, sure they do vote for your candidate, which in this circumstance means that they go to the polls.

Sounds pretty simple — and in theory, it is — but for a citywide campaign, there are lots of moving parts that take significant planning and massive amounts of manpower to actually get it done. The effort involves knocking on doors, making final rounds of phone calls, shaking hands at SEPTA stops and handing out literature at polling places. It means having drivers ferry around election-day workers to targeted areas so they can knock on doors. Sometimes, it literally means getting them to the polls: picking them up, driving them there, waiting for them to vote, driving them home.

You need a detailed plan to make sure everything you need to do actually gets done. Most campaigns do their GOTV planning in-house — it's done either by their field director or campaign manager — and layer in support from interest groups or organizations to supplement their own cadre of volunteers to get voters to the polls.

Volunteers are the best source of election-day workers because of how committed they are. Some volunteers get a daily stipend — sometimes known as "street money" — but that doesn't make them any less effective. Most good campaigns have a volunteer coordinator whose sole job is to find, recruit and train volunteers. Campaigns also team up with organizations that can provide lots of workers, such as unions and ward leaders.

One of the mai...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/02/08/a-bad-lie http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/02/08/a-bad-lie This past week was a big one in the mayoral campaign. Last Wednesday morning, a new poll showed that Tom Knox and his millions jumped into second place; he's closely trailing U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah and well ahead of former city Councilman Michael Nutter, state Rep. Dwight Evans and U.S. Rep. Bob Brady.

That same day, all five released their end-of-2006 campaign-finance reports. Knox, who has lent $5 million to his campaign and raised another $500,000, was far ahead, with Nutter and Evans trailing with $1.4 million and $1.2 million cash-on-hand respectively. Brady and Fattah — the two "front-runners" according to pundits — lagged with about $400,000 each.

The new poll and the weak fundraising of Brady and Fattah predictably set off a round of howls from those who don't know/don't like/can't control Knox. Notably, it started a move by their supporters in City Council to lift the campaign-finance limits.

Knox did what lots of campaigns do: He aired as many television ads as he could in order to lift his name identification, which is mainly what the new poll measured. It is exactly the plan Ed Rendell used in 2002 when he ran for governor and Marty Weinberg used in 1999 when he ran for mayor. The early spending on ads worked then and they are working now. But is that enough to win? Nope.

Weinberg was widely (and accurately) viewed as the leading "white candidate" in the race against a number of African-Americans. Although he was able to raise his name identification and launch himself into second place with early television ads, he couldn't close the deal mainly because when voters took a serious look at him, they didn't think he was qualified to be mayor. That, and he didn't run a particularly good campaign.

Three years later, Rendell ran early ads, but he also ran a good campaign that better connected with voters than his opponents. He grew on people the more they learned about him. Having met Knox many times and knowing a fair amount about him, it is hard to believe that will be the case with him.

Knox has big questions to answer about his viability and has yet to show he can actually run a top-n...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/02/01/where-the-money-goes http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/02/01/where-the-money-goes By the time you read this, Philadelphia will know how much money each mayoral candidate has raised. Today's daily newspapers will feature pundits and other insiders who will declare "winners" and "losers." They will also decree that some campaigns "have the momentum" while others are "dead."

Last week, I looked at how campaigns raise that money — the figures weren't available before press time — and the difference between how a candidate sees it and how their staff sees it. This week, I will look at how that money is being spent.

At this point, it is equally important to look at how much has been raised by a campaign and how much they have left on hand. Just like with companies, if a campaign's burn rate is too high — they are spending too large a percentage of what they are bringing in — their ability to run their operations will be impaired. There is no set standard on what an appropriate percentage is at this point, however, and it shifts as the campaign heads toward Election Day. In the last weeks of a race, a campaign may spend $10 for every $1 they bring in. That means they have to save as much as they can now.

So what do campaigns spend their money on? At this stage, they are spending most of it on staff, overhead and raising money.

It seems obvious that it takes money to raise money, but it is true. Fundraisers have to be built, rooms rented, caterers hired, invitations (and, later, thank-you cards) printed and mailed and reports filed. Staff also needs to be brought on to begin organizing in the community, planning get-out-the-vote operations, crafting press and policy statements and handling the candidate's schedule and briefing materials. Payroll can cost tens of thousands a month just for senior staff. Add in junior staff, and the taxes that must be paid along with their salaries, and it gets pretty expensive pretty quickly.

Campaigns have also likely spent some money on polling. A good benchmark poll can be quite expensive — up to $30,000 — with smaller polls running from $8,000 to $15,000. (Each campaign has hired a top-flight pollster.)

In the next few we...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/01/25/dollar-daze http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/01/25/dollar-daze When candidates release their end-of-2006 campaign-finance reports during the coming week, political insiders and the media will look at the candidates' totals, their spending and their remaining "cash on hand." Then, of course, they will declare some candidates "winners" and others "losers."

Though the reports don't have to be submitted to the city and the state until Jan. 31, we already know some of the totals:

• Michael Nutter: $1.7 million raised overall, with $1.4 million cash on hand. (Impressive.)

• Dwight Evans: $1.3 million cash on hand. (Pretty darn good, but not as impressive as Nutter, since Evans is the Democratic chair of Appropriations in the state House and could have used his position to raise more.)

• Bob Brady: $1 million in just 10 December days. (Mind-blowing.)

But so far, millionaire Tom Knox and U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah have refused to release their figures, which means their totals will become the big news once they do. The word on the street isn't too optimistic about Fattah's level of fundraising, but we know Knox recently loaned another $5 million of his own money to his campaign, a significant portion of which he's spent on television ads and those weird billboards on I-95. Despite his previous spending, he should still have the most cash on hand.

Next week, I will detail how that money is going to get spent — staff, polls, television and radio commercials, campaign paraphernalia and get-out-the-vote efforts. But this week, the issue is: How does a politician raise money in the first place?

There are two perspectives worth mentioning: how a candidate sees it and how his or her staff sees it. And, they are decidedly different.

As far as the staff is concerned, the way to raise money is to have the candidate identify those who are the most likely to donate and those who can help find additional donors, starting with family, friends and co-workers. Everyone who can donate should also be asked to get everyone they have ever met to donate, too. It's what we call "raise an...]]> http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/01/18/do-campaign-polls-matter http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/01/18/do-campaign-polls-matter During the next few months, people across Philadelphia will dissect every aspect of the mayoral campaign. They will discuss the candidates' records and proposals, who can win and who is winning. Occasionally, they may even discuss who actually should win.

That isn't what this column is about.

Rather, this will aim to offer insights into why decisions are being made by the candidates, and what those decisions mean. Sometimes, it will look at the ridiculousness that candidates have to endure in order to be elected. This first installment focuses on the role of polls in campaigns, why they are (and sometimes aren't) important and how they are used by campaigns.

Political insiders — pundits, donors and others who like to sound smart — are obsessed with polls. The day after one race ends, they begin discussing the polls about the next one. It's what we do. But what do they mean and how do campaigns use them?

There are two types of polls people hear about during campaign season: public and internal polls. Both play an important role.

Public polls are usually conducted by media outlets or interest groups. (The recent release of the Susquehanna Polling & Research poll for Pennsylvanians for Effective Government is an example.) Internal campaign polls are sometimes released to the public — usually as a way to raise money or influence media coverage — but mostly they are kept private because they are used to make strategic decisions about what the campaign message should be, how to run a campaign and where and when to spend money.

There are two main criteria by which to judge a poll: who was surveyed and how big the sample size was.

How big a sample size was used is pretty much self-explanatory. The larger the sample, the smaller the margin of error and the more likely the findings reflect what would happen if the actual vote was taken that day.

Who was surveyed doesn't mean particular individuals, but rather types of voters. Because such a small percentage of voters actually vote (much less vote in primaries) and campaigns are only concerned with actual voters, t...]]>