Chabot and Schmidt: High roller, cheap date

If you were Jean Schmidt, you might well think that, sometimes, life in politics is not fair.

Here's her 1st Congressional District colleague and fellow Republican, Steve Chabot, sitting on a campaign fund of $413,932, as of the June 30 FEC reports, and he's holding a fundraising breakfast at the Queen City Club next Monday where tickets go for $1,000 a pop.

$1,000 a pop; and the guy doesn't even have a GOP primary opponent. Schmidt, of course, does, in the form of Phil Heimlich; and, yet, as of June 30, the incumbent 2nd District congresswoman had only $85,169 in the bank, plus a $309,126 debt from the last time around because of the personal cash she lent her campaign.

So Schmidt, with her $85,169 in her pocket, is holding her own Queen City Club fundraising breakfast Friday morning. The ticket price for her fundraiser? The bargain-basement price of $250.

So, it costs four times as much to have scrambled eggs and a fruit cup with the congressman who already has about five times as much money in the bank already as his colleague, the congresswoman from the 2nd District, who not only has a Republican primary opponent but a couple of Democrats who want her job and are already raising a whole lot more money than she has.

Makes one wonder if the difference between the two GOP incumbents is that the 2nd District congresswoman couldn't draw a crowd at $1,000 per head.

Even if she offered an unlimited breakfast bar.