Chabot vs. Cranley in the $$ race

Congressman Steve Chabot, R-Westwood, waited until after 11 p.m. last night to post his latest campaign finance report - later than the Enquirer Washington Bureau stayed open to cover President Bush's State of the Union speech and too late for our story in today's paper.

FYI, Democratic challenger John Cranley, a Cincinnati city council member, also waited until late on Tuesday to file his report with the Federal Election Commission.

Either way, the reports are now out there for all to see. And check them out we did... Here's a sampling of the interesting things we found:

Chabot leads Cranley in fundraising three-to-one, which is no surprise considering he's a six-term incumbent. What is surprising is that he isn't leading Cranley by more. As of the end of 2005, Chabot reported having nearly $600,000 in the bank to Cranley's $180,000.

But the real shocker comes from looking at how much money each candidate raised during the last three months of 2005, which is the time period covered in the latest report. Cranley actually beat Chabot in that contest, raising about $187,800 to Chabot's $172,600.

Is that why Chabot waited so long to file his report?

Next, we looked at where their money came from. For Chabot, about one-third came from individual donors and two-thirds came from corporate or congressional political action committees (PACs). Cranley was the other way around: Less than one-third from PACs and more than two-thirds from individuals.

A deeper look at the individual donors revealed nothing interesting about Chabot. He got money from the usual GOP suspects (H.C. "Buck" Niehoff, Charles Kubicki, Robert J. Kohlhepp, etc.). But it did reveal some interesting things about Cranley, who got $2,000 from trash talk show host (and former mayor of Cincinnati) Jerry Springer, $8,400 from members of the Cranley family (awwww, how sweet!) , and $12,600 from the George Soros clan.

The last contribution prompted the Hamilton County Republican Party to dash of a news release demanding that Cranley return the Soros-related cash he just got, as well as $19,500 he's received from Soros and family since 2000.

Why?

According to the HCRP, Soros was convicted of insider trading and fined $2.3 million by a French court. He also has given millions of dollars to support drug legalization efforts and backed a 2002 Ohio ballot initiative, rejected by voters, that would have allowed drug offenders to opt for treatment instead of jail.

After looking at the individual contributions, we moved on to PAC money, where Chabot raked in $67,000 from Republican members of Congress, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., House majority leader contenders Roy Blunt of Missouri and John Boehner of West Chester. Ohio Reps. Mike Oxley, Deborah Pryce and Pat Tiberi also gave to Chabot.

Chabot also benefitted from several corporate PACs: General Electric Company; Cincinnati Bell Inc. Federal PAC; Cinergy Corp. PAC; Limited Inc./ Intimate Brands Inc. PAC; Pfizer PAC; Microsoft Corp. PAC; National Automobile Dealers Association; and Major League Baseball PAC.

Cranley, meanwhile, got $31,500 from congressional Democrats, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Ohio gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland, Ohio senatoral candidate Sherrod Brown and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel, who hosted a fundraiser for Cranley in Cincinnati last month.

Finally, we looked at expenditures. Chabot spent $16,352 over the last three months of 2005 while Cranley spent $8,697. This isn't exactly a comparable number, however, because Cranley didnt' declare his candidacy until early December. Still, we did find out how much Cranley's press secretary is making - and how much Chabot spent on his "X-Mas Cards Mailing."

FYI - That was $2,754 for "X-Mas" cards and they didn't even send one to the Enquirer Washignton Bureau! Humph.