Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker just can’t catch a break. With his presidential campaign debt just under $1.2 million at the end of 2015, Walker was desperate to raise cash by selling off anything he could. He started by hitting up his donor and email list looking for people wanting a memento from his failed campaign.
For the low, low price of $45, you could get an obsolete and worthless “Walker for America” T-shirt. But no color or size choice. If you get the wrong size, you can frame it or turn it into a pillow case. Please note – Kohl’s Cash not accepted for payment at this time.
Now his campaign donor and email list itself is on the market. At least most of it is; lately it appears Walker isn’t so forthcoming about email stuff, so who the heck really knows what’s on his email list.
By the end of April, his campaign debt was down to about $900,000 after paying off $308,000 so far this year, much of which came from renting out his campaign and donor lists to other candidates at various levels. From the Wisconsin Gazette:
“The bulk of those payments have been made possible by income from Granite Lists, a New Hampshire-based company that rents out Republican donor lists. Granite Lists has paid more than $172,000 to Walker’s campaign since it ended in September.
In April alone, Granite Lists brought the campaign nearly $50,000, comprising most of the total $70,930 the campaign brought in that month.”
The irony, of course, is that Scott Walker campaigned for governor and president as a fiscal conservative, touting his ability to pay off debt. So far he has proven that he is not very good at handling debt in his personal life, he’s even worse as a governor, and he saved the worst of his terrible fiscal management adventures for last by spending an average of $90,000 a day in a presidential campaign that barely got off the ground.
When it comes to actual fundraising for a campaign, it’s not that he’s bad at it. He’s just… awkward.
He sold out his constituents before he finished his first year as governor, so it should come as no surprise that he’s now selling off his donors. Considering the weird way he uses these lists, perhaps they’re better in the hands of a more competent candidate’s campaign.
Featured image by Michael Vadon via Flickr, available under Creative Commons 2.0
