Half a million dollars raised already
If money is an indicator, David Pepper will easily defeat Stephanie Dumas in the May 2 Democratic primary for Hamilton County Commissioner.
In financial reports candidates filed Thursday with the Hamilton County Board of Elections, Dumas’ contributors raised $961. Dumas gave her campaign a loan of $8,026.19. She has a zero balance in her campaign fund.
Her largest contributors were two individuals who each gave $100 and an in-kind contribution of $1,000 from Deborah Gaines for office and rental space.
Dumas' campaign finance report (in .pdf format)
Pepper received $72,505 from contributors but because he carried forward almost $30,000 from his days on Cincinnati City Council, he has $104,856.09 available.
Pepper’s largest contributors were Thomas Crain ($5,000) and 14 who gave $2,500 including mom and dad John and Frances Pepper, Jack Rouse, James Zimmerman and Neil Bortz.
Pepper's campaign finance report -- contributions (in .pdf format)
Pepper's campaign finance report -- expenses (in .pdf format)
Both Dumas and Pepper were topped, though, by the man they hope to unseat – incumbent Republican Commissioner Phil Heimlich.
Heimlich has raised $392,853.76 – and that is just since the beginning of the year after he dropped out as a lieutenant governor candidate to try to retain his commission seat.
Heimlich’s largest contributors were Carl Lindner ($75,000), Richard Farmer ($15,000) and 15 others who gave at least $5,000 each.
Heimlich's campaign finance report (in .pdf format)
The financial reports were through April 12.
16 Comments:
at 4:47 PM, April 21, 2006 
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at 1:08 AM, April 22, 2006 
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Post a Comment*It was interesting to see Heimlich accept so many big checks from people bidding on the Banks (Anderson, Smyjunas, Barrett)--and then send checks back to those contributors a couple weeks before this report was due.
Someone really politically astute must have told Heimlich that "pay to play" wasn't winning many votes for the Republicans in Columbus. Might not look good when those very contributors are picked as the Banks developers in the next week or so.
Hey, what's with Stan Chesley giving $2500 to Phil Heimlich?
Never mind that Chesley used to claim to be a Democrat, he handled the Bengals lawsuit for the county after Phil gave him the work.
Pay to play? Why not speak plainly? This looks like a bribe.
$75,OOO just from Carl Lindner?
Let's see. Lindner sued the Enquirer in 1998 and settled for a never-disclosed large sum. The paper was humiliated and has never recovered. Ever since, the paper has gone easy on Lindner.
Lindner and his family members have been Phil Heimlich's biggest contributors since Heimlich's early days in politics. Now we see that Lindner continues to make a serious investment in Phil Heimlich's political future.
More recently, we've seen the paper's bias in favor of Heimlich and the exclusion of Todd Portune, the only Democrat on the commission. The situation became so extreme that Portune was compelled to publish a public complaint about the Enquirer on the Cincinnati Beacon blog.
As readers we're not supposed to notice the scores of articles covering county business that give cover to Heimlich, despite his endless political gaffes and yet manage to exclude Portune.
The reality is that, de facto, Carl Lindner owns the Cincinnati Enquirer. Lindner means to see Phil re-elected and he has the clout to influence editorial decisions.
The question is, what exactly is Carl Lindner getting out of the big investment in his boy Heimlich?
Kimball, thanks for publishing this on the blog. Can we expect to see a more thorough analysis of Lindner's influence in the pages of the Enquirer?
$75,000 from Linder before the Pre-Primary filing? No surprise about the amount (there will be a lot more), surprised he reported it this early. I think Phil is running a bit scared.
I wonder how much money Carl Lindner will give to Pepper. I'm sure he's going to hedge his bet again. His given him big bucks to him in the past. I wonder what Carl will get in return for his investments. He sure has gotten big returns in the past. It pays to be one of Carl's many minions and pays even more to be PHILthy rich.
Are you kidding? Heimlich must be running scared. Cintas people gave him about $40K. Petro gave him $50K. Lindner $75K. What's he so afraid of? Defending his miserable three-year record of failure?
If I were Kathy Binns, the first thing I'd tell Portune to do is stay off Cincinnati Beacon. Jason Haap is getting to be the next Nate Livingston, and anybody who associates with him isn't going to be taken seriously.
Hey K-Ball, hows about running the names and the #s....say, Pepper v. Heimlich?
Notice that some of the same cast and crew are giving to both, but PH gets the lion's share?
Also, want to dig a little deeper? See how many of those on Pepper's list used to be on PH's list, but aren't anymore.
Why no mention of "Return of Contribution" this is HIGHLY irregular.
Anon - Portune/Beacon advice - Stay on topic and grind your ax elsewhere.
Petro gave him $50K.
You're misreading the Heimlich report.
Page 32 has a 1/31/06 entry for $57,716 from "Citizens for Petro." This is a refund of money Phil Heimlich had previously handed to Petro before he was kicked off the ticket. (Yeah, yeah, I know how it was spun, but it was Petro who threw Heimlich overboard.)
By the way, Heimlich's bizarre campaign profile is still on Petro's server. Lots of freaky stuff here, including an endorsement letter from anti-abortion loon John Willke (on stationary with a tiny fetus!) and awards from CCV and Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, both of which are Lindner properties, just like Phil Heimlich.
Speaking of Lindner and CCV, the Enquirer didn't report it, but the Dispatch ran this recent article about Xavier being the site the annual CCV fundraiser, all paid for by Uncle Carl.
jason who?
Heimlich’s largest contributors were Carl Lindner ($75,000), Richard Farmer ($15,000)
Richard Farmer (CINTAS) is a major supporter of the local "Character Cities" program which Heimlich installed here when he was on council.
As has been widely reported - not in the Cincinnati press, except for the Beacon - "Character Cities" is a front for fringe evangelist Bill Gothard, whose $64 million/year "ministry" runs on the sales of seminars, videos, training materials, you name it.
Heimlich was keynote speaker at the organization's most recent national convention in Oklahoma City. He got mentioned in this recent In These Times cover story, "The Cult of Character."
The State Treasure of Arizona is under investigation for taking kickback commissions after installing the "Character" program in that state. The Phoenix article that broke the story said that a "Character Cities" spokesperson admitted it to their reporter.
Hey Kimball, this sounds like an easy one. Why not call the "Character Cities" organization and ask them if Heimlich has been getting a taste? That might really help alleviate the accusations that the Enquirer goes easy on Phil.
Ahhh, what you don't know is...
In December, feeling pressure from Blackwell supporters, Heimlich told Petro he was going to cut and run from the LG spot and run for re-election for County Commissioner. This was a safe deal at the time because Pepper had his sights set on running for State Auditor.
Heimlich demanded Petro return his $200,000 plus in contributions Heimlich brought to the Petro/Heimlich ticket. Petro reminded Heimlich who's name was on the top of the ticket and said there'd be no refund if he cut and ran. (Which by the way, ended up helping Petro because Heimlich's negatives are very high).
Heimlich decided to stay on as Petro's LG candidate at that time.
Then in January after Pepper announced he will run for County Commissioner, Hamilton County GOP chairman, George Vincent, saw some very disturbing polling numbers that indicated the only R in Hamilton County who can come close to Pepper for Commissioner was Heimlich.
That's when Vincent cut a deal with Heimlich. He promised Heimlich that the Hamilton County GOP would raise at least as much for the Heimlich for County Commissioner campaign as Heimlich left behind in the Petro for Governor campaign treasury.
That promise has now been fullfilled by Lindner, Farmer, et al.
In summary, Vincent didn't want to be the first Hamilton County GOP chairman in over 50 years to lose a majority on the BOCC, so he bought Heimlich, like the political whore that he is, to drop out of the LG race and run for re-election.
The question is now, did Vincent make a good investment? Or could that kind of money been better spent building up positive name ID of any other R with far lower negatives then Prince, I mean Phil, Heimlich?
We'll learn the answer to that question in November.
Anon 9:33 Heimlich demanded Petro return his $200,000 plus in contributions
Enjoyed your post. Can you steer me to a source document on that $200K?
Moving right along, exactly what platform is Phil Heimlich going to run on? All his projects and escapades have crumbled: Drake, Banks, Krings....
Perhaps he's relying on the power of prayer?
If money was an indicator, Pepper would be Mayor and he's not.
If biased coverage is any indicator of a bad paper, the Enquirer is the worst.
Regarding the $200k in contributions.
It was not one check, it was a combination of SW OH money Heimlich raised for the Petro/Heimlich ticket that Petro would have unlikely raised for himself down here. So there's no documentation, it's just a ballpark figure.
Of course, as we can see from Petro's "refund" to Heimlich of $57,716, Petro thought the amount Heimlich brought to the ticket was far less.
My original point was and still is, that Heimlich's price to Vincent was at least $200k to drop out of the LG spot and run against Pepper. Vincent went to the usual suspects and they delivered.
What I find amusing about all this is that if Heimlich would have not joined Petro's ticket and ran for the 2nd Congressional District as he had originally planned, he would likely be in Congress right now. He must wake up every morning kicking himself.
But that's the price a political whore pays if he changes partners everytime someone offers a higher bid for his (daddy's) name.
What I find amusing about all this is that if Heimlich would have not joined Petro's ticket and ran for the 2nd Congressional District as he had originally planned, he would likely be in Congress right now. He must wake up every morning kicking himself.
Great post, but my informed understanding was that Heimlich was passed over for the Portman seat before before he signed on with Petro. The LG spot was definitely not Phil's first choice.
Re: the Portman vacancy, maybe whoever made the decision to pass over Phil in favor of Pat DeWine had also seen Heimlich's negative polling.
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