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--> --> Election cash: Some races may already be decided By Sean Wolfe Ashland Daily Tidings It's not a hard and fast rule, but when it comes to political contests, those with the fattest wallets most often end up in the winner's circle. That's the word from Janice Thompson, executive director of the Portland-based thinktank Money in Politics Action Research Project. Thompson, who tracks campaigns and contributors, also measures the tide of greenbacks that buoys candidates into office. She recently completed a competitive analysis of the campaign fundraising of state legislative candidates, and found an overwhelming majority of races are - from a financial perspective - already won. "It looks like most of Oregon's legislative general elections are competitive since two or more candidates appear on the ballot in all but seven districts. But in over half of those races, the fundraising disparity is so great that the underdog opponent is likely to be `drowned out' and unable to get out a campaign message," Thompson said. "To have a vibrant democracy, it's not good to have so many uncontested races. But in order to look at whether a race is contested, you need to look beyond the slate. The reality is that it takes money to get the message out. So when someone is not in a position to raise much money, or doesn't have access to personal wealth or a pool of contributors with deep pockets, they start from an underdog position. And unless we have comprehensive campaign finance reform to shift that equation, you're going to have status quo." Thompson's findings indicate that a third of the 15 state Senate races fall in the "drowned out" category, where underdog candidates only command 25 to 50 percent of the resources of their opponents. In the state race for the House of Representatives, 47 out of 75 races fell into the same category. Thirteen, or 17 percent of all legislative races, are what Thompson calls "equal opportunity" contests, where opponents are fundraising at roughly equivalent levels. "You see the disparity in the legislative races, and you see it also in federal races between (Bill) Bradbury and (Gordon) Smith, and between (Peter) Buckley and (Greg) Walden. Unfortunately or not, if you had to pick an indicator of electoral success, the best one is how much money they raise. It doesn't happen all the time, but if you just want to look at one thing, money talks the loudest," Thompson said. Here in Ashland, Peter Buckley has learned a lot about money since winning his primary against John McColgan earlier this year. To date, Buckley has managed to amass about $40,000 against GOP incumbent Greg Walden's recently reported $507,000. "One of the congressmen we met in traveling around the state told me that in order to unseat an incumbent, you need to raise three times the amount of money that the incumbent has," Buckley said. So we'd need to raise $1.5 million to unseat Greg. It's very frustrating, especially when Greg can duck public forums. His staff has told me that he will not speak at any public function in October, which makes it really hard to engage in meaningful debate." Buckley said he has had to cancel appearances before the League of Women Voters, and other groups, that won't host debates unless both candidates show up. Buckley also said he is debating on how to best get out his message given his campaign's tight funding. For example, The Buckley for Congress campaign has made several TV spots, and is debating on whether to blow its budget on buying electronic media, and is leaning in the direction of a less expensive strategy, like old-fashioned town meetings and hand-shaking. Buckley is appearing Wednesday in Bend at a public library to offer his thoughts to that community, and said he's managed to score some free television time in the Portland and Bend markets, and is slated to appear on Jefferson Public Radio's Jefferson Exchange later this month. "We need to get the word of mouth going. We need person-to-person contact. And we need to spend what little we have as strategically as possible," Buckley said. Besides the empirical rule that incumbents tend to command the bulk of political donations, another reason for the disparity between Buckley and Walden are the sources of their donations. Buckley has accepted only small checks from individual donors. According to numbers assembled by the Washington DC-based Center for Responsive Politics, Walden's top checkwriters include The National Association of Broadcasters, United Parcel Service, National Rural Electric Cooperative Assoc., timber firms Georgia-Pacific Corp. and Willamette Industries, and the now-bankrupt Enron Corp. ------ On The Net: Money in Politics Action Research Project: www.oregonfollowthemoney.org Center for Responsive Politics: www.opensecrets.org Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2001 Lee Northwest Publishing