One Ogo Myth Shattered
Today is the reporting deadline for the 5th CD campaign finance "pre-special-election" reports, covering 8/16 through 9/26. Ogonowski's is now in, and we can now plainly see that he is not being funded by out-of-state Republicans. And that's gonna be a problem for him.
He raised a disappointing -- in my opinion -- $200,513 in that period, for an election-cycle total of $434,120 (much of which he spent during the primary). He showed $221,119 cash on hand as of 9/26. He has raised some, but not much, since.
Of the $200k he raised in this recent period, by my count right around $30,000 came from outside Massachusetts, $117,000 from inside, and $53,000 was unitemized so I can't tell. That last batch is small donations, and from what I could tell from the national conservative blogs, they were not successful at driving more than a few thousand dollars to Ogo, but who knows.
So clearly, Ogo's campaign has not whipped up a frenzy of national monetary support, as many expected it might.
Of course, the RCCC or other groups could still spend their own money to run ads for him (or more likely, attacking Tsongas). But for now, it sure looks like a Mass.-funded campaign.
Unfortunately for Ogo, that's probably going to leave him way, way, undermatched financially. We'll see soon when Niki's report comes in.