I’ve been writing with more frequency lately and I appreciate the interest and suggestions that have been coming in. I am Sherri Welsh, my husband is Barry Welsh Indiana’s 6th Congressional Candidate, I write under the name of Congressional Candidates Wife.
We’ve been as most know, operating on a shoestring budget – at $50,000 level. With the amount raised we have been able to get signs, pamphlets, etc. out to get Barry’s name, face and message out to the district comprised of 19 counties.
Barry’s opponent Mr. Pence has raised over 1.3 million and has spent a large majority of it on the current campaign. DOES THAT NOT MEAN THE RACE IS COMPETIVITE? The disparity is ironic as we have been busting our butts to get as much done with as little as possible (this is one of the skills honed by any rural small church that operates in America these days) while Mr.Pence has spent over a MILLION $$$$ on this campaign so far. I’m so proud of Barry, and little things like an email we received today (see below) show us that we have more volunteers than we knew about. We have people literally printing off Barry’s bio and issues pages to canvass in their own towns.
Informal internal poll numbers showed this morning that the race is within the margin of error and 75% of independents are breaking our way! GOTV, early voting, absentee voting and voter registration efforts are all paying off.
THIS IS BIG!!!!!!
Subject: Fwd: Ammunition for Barry’s Campaign
Feel free to use any of the following information in ads … get the word out!
Let the #’s speak for themselves 🙂 The people are tired of having government “bought off and lazy” and I think this data could help secure some votes for Barry.Voting Attendance Record for the U.S. House of Representatives
January 1-July 29, 2006Mike Pence- 7 month voting record
========Mike Pence did not vote 5.4% of the time.
He was present 3 times and decided not to vote even though he was present.
Mike Pence did not vote 23 times during this 7 month period!How diligent is your Member of Congress in their voting attendance this year? How many times did they vote or did they not vote either way but simply said, How many votes did they miss (Not Voting)? We provide this information for you to use while evaluating your Member of Congress.
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/voting/index.html <—go here and check for yourself
How about his PAC money addiction?
The 2002 election vs. Melina FOX : Mike Pence had 3.12% more PAC money than FOX.
The 2004 election vs. Melina FOX : Mike Pence uped the stakes and had 23.1% more PAC money than FOXso what about this year when PENCE is running against BARRY WELSH?
So far for 2006 Pence has over 250% more PAC money than BARRY WELSH!
According to www.opensecrets.org, Mike Pence has $533,569 in PAC contributions for this election and has spent
$1,064,134 of the $1,348,402 he has raised for the 2006 campaign so far.
Barry Welsh’s grass roots campaign has raised $50,178 as of the Sept 30th report to opensecrets.org
I feel this is proof that Welsh’s votes are going to be for the people and not for the contributors of PAC money.
Another cool thing, which we couldn’t have paid for, was that at 6pm tonight Jack Cafferty from CNN read Barry’s email in it’s entirety regarding Broken Government and mentioned that Barry is the Congressional Candidate for Indiana’s 6th District.
We couldn’t have PAID for that!
Right now we have all our radio ads in place (bought and paid for) except the biggest cities in the district – Anderson and Muncie, this is critical and we need to cover 7 stations so, we need to raise $2,912 to finish covering all the radio in those two cities,so we are asking for donations of 29.12 from 100 netroots patriots. If we raise more than what we require immediately, we can start on cable TV with a commercial we already have produced, filmed and in the can – just need the $$$ to air the ads in Muncie, Anderson, Richmond, New Castle, Ft.Wayne, and Columbus.
If any of you want to see a real live Netroots Campaign in action and succeed – donate now, anything will be appreciated and put to wise use.
This is my personal diary and not vetted thru the campaign, it’s a close up and personal perspective of a Congressional Campaign from the inside out.
Thank you for taking the time to read this diary and I thank you for any and all comments.
Love,
Sherri Welsh