[Update: Exhibit A follows.]
October 8, 2005
Bloomberg Spends $46.6 Million of His Own Money on Race
By JIM RUTENBERG and PATRICK D. HEALY
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has already spent nearly $50 million of his own money on his re-election campaign, according to campaign records released yesterday, far ahead of the phenomenal pace of his spending in the 2001 election and putting him on track to break all records for expenditures for any office except the presidency.
The spending - almost $20 million on television advertising alone - was at least seven times the amount spent by the mayor's Democratic opponent, Fernando Ferrer, who has already been through a costly primary.
The disclosure of the figures drew howls of protest from Mr. Ferrer - who called it variously "obnoxious," "offensive" and "obscene" - and local and national campaign- finance advocates who worried about Mr. Bloomberg's lopsided spending.
The campaign filings paint a stark picture of the financial advantages Mr. Bloomberg has over Mr. Ferrer, who is still scrambling to raise funds one donor at a time.
Mr. Bloomberg has used his wealth, estimated at $6 billion, to establish what appears to be nearly insurmountable dominance in the advertising war. In addition to the nearly $20 million so far saturating television channels with ads, he has spent $1.2 million on radio commercials and $4.3 million on campaign mailings, according to his filings, which listed his total spending at $46.6 million, compared to roughly $29 million at this point in 2001.
Mr. Ferrer has spent approximately $6.5 million on the race, including roughly $3.5 million on television, according to his filing yesterday. Mr. Ferrer has raised only about $232,000 since clinching his party's nomination on Sept. 13, and had only $555,000 in his campaign bank account as of Monday, the end of the filing period. (That amount will grow by $316,000 next week, when matching funds arrive.)
"It is very hard to overcome that kind of money advantage under any circumstances, very hard," said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant. ...
Carl