29 Days Until the Election- Smith Spends More Than $56,000 in May 16 Reporting

31 pages of fun here, seeing where Smith gets his money and where he’s spending it.

We covered Baker’s expenditures yesterday, so we’ll talk about Smith’s today.  You can find Smith’s report by clicking here.

Smith spent more than $56,000 in the month of April, with his three biggest expenses being $14,633.55 for advertisements, $13,523 for postage and $15,909.97 for printing.

More than $10,000 went for billboards.  Almost all the rest is spent with printers and a place called Automated Mail in Tulsa, as well as what look like entry fees and ads for the Strawberry Festival in Stilwell.

There’s not a lot exciting here, but it should be pointed out that Smith spent more than Baker this period and seems to be using different strategies.  As we mentioned yesterday, Baker has spent more than $7,000 on online ads, while Smith is spending heavily on billboards.  We hardly think that this election will turn on the effectiveness of 21^st century ad strategy vs. 1950s style ad strategy (burmashave, anyone?), especially when the candidates have such different styles and visions for the Cherokee Nation, as they themselves outlined in the Cherokee Phoenix debate, but it is kind of fun to see if the ad strategies have any effect or not.

Tomorrow: stay tuned to see what Chad Smith has in common with the guy pictured right.