As we discussed yesterday, this has become a $1 million Cherokee Chief campaign . In the last few days before the election, we’ll spend some time talking about where that money is coming from and where it is being spent. We’ll start with Smith today and move to Baker later.
Smith raised $154,108.99 in the most recent reporting period, including a $38,000 loan. He had about 132 donors, for an average donation of $879 or so. Donors of note include Barry Derryberry, an OKC area attorney, Council member Jack Baker and former speaker of the house for Oklahoma Chris Benge. The biggest expenses were $18,924 for telephone (which turns out not to be long distance calls to Uzbekistan, but actually phone polling), $35,106.24 for printing (mailers anyone?) and $23,131.50 for compensation to individuals.
The polling was done by Cole Hardgrave Snodgrass, who we talked about earlier. He even spent $5,247 on office supplies, which is a lot of staplers and paper clips!
Smith’s total expenditures were $110,992.26, which leaves Smith with $42,616.73 in cash as of September 15. We’ll plan on Baker’s finance report tomorrow, but if our tribal court or the federal court come up with something soon, you’ll understand if we push it back, right?
