Monday evening, The Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP) took its show on the road, bringing to Christopher Newport University the financial information of the two candidates for mayor in Newport News, Pat Woodbury and McKinley Price. The evening started with a presentation of the data, including such graphs as this and this. (The actual presentation, in pdf format, is here.) Those of us who use the resources of VPAP on a regular basis are already familiar with what a wonderful tool it is in tracking the source of donations for state-level candidates; having this tool available for local races is the icing on the cake. (Norfolk is one of the cities that VPAP is tracking. That information can be found here. The mayoral information is up to date, with the council contests being updated Wednesday.)
Virginia’s campaign finance laws are fairly loose; the idea is that as long as everything is disclosed, anything goes. VPAP has made it easy to review the data. No offense to the State Board of Elections, but their campaign finance disclosures area leaves a lot to be desired. Plus, the only local candidate information on that site are those who file reports electronically. VPAP has gone the additional mile to obtain the information from paper-filed reports. Of course, it would be a lot easier on everyone if electronic filing of campaign reports was mandatory.
After the presentation, the two mayoral candidates were each given 10 minutes to speak. Interestingly enough, for the most part, the candidates didn’t talk about campaign finance at all. Price did mention the source of his out-of-state donors but that was the extent to which either candidate addressed the issue. Instead, we got standard campaign fare, with all the usual talking points. Each of the candidates were given the opportunity to ask the other a single question. Woodbury asked Price about the Riverside thing and Price asked Woodbury about HRT. (Price serves on the Riverside Health Systems board while Woodbury serves on the HRT board.)
I think everyone missed the boat here. There was an assumption, on the part of both the presenters and the candidates, that the average person understands why campaigns need money. I’m not convinced that is the case. One of the first posts I wrote on this blog was an explanation of the why. Campaigns are expensive because reaching out to voters is expensive. I would have liked to have had the speakers start at the beginning, explaining the need for the money and how it translates into name recognition, getting out the candidate’s message, and, ultimately, votes.
Which is why the candidate with the most money often wins.
A second thing: while the Power Point was OK, I’d much rather seen a live presentation of the VPAP site. Show people how easy it is to use, how the information is organized, what information is there.
Oh – and show them the donate page 🙂 Because making this data available, on the internet, for free, ain’t exactly free.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 