Tom gets creative with Fossella's numbers

via Tom Wrobleski;

GOP Rep. Vito Fossella has banked $851,000 or so for the race thus far (not counting whatever came in at last week's Dick Cheney fundraiser and other recent money events), good enough for fifth place on the money list among the New York GOP candidates listed on the Federal Election Commission website.

A few other statistics overlooked.

* Fossella trails every other Republican incumbent in New York in cash on hand, the most useful metric
* Fossella an incumbent trails three Republican challengers from other districts in terms of fund raising totals, none of them in the NYC media market
* Fossella was fifth place out of 17 in terms of funds raised, however 6 of those raised $60,000 or less
* Fossella trails only two other candidates in terms of money spent

note: It actually appears as though one of the other candidates with more money wasted at this point has misfiled or there is a mistake on the FEC's end as their expenditures is equal to exactly their contributions, so this more likely than not should be their cash on hand.

This would mean while Fossella is 5th out of 17 (really 5 out of 11) in terms of money raised, he is second in terms of money spent/wasted at this point. Additionally this contradicts Tom's statement that Fossella banked $851,000. That would imply that that money is available to him. In fact he has banked $248,000, with over $600,000 already gone to massive campaign expenditures. But I guess Tom's version is another way you could look at all of this.

update:
Let's take a look at the second part of Tom's article;

Democratic City Councilman Domenic Recchia, who's raised about $350,000, ranks 24th out of 41 Democratic candidates

* 20 candidates ahead of Recchia are incumbents, only 1 challenger has out raised their incumbent opponent (Eric Massa, D, NY-29)
* 1 of the three challengers ahead of Recchia is Dan Maffei. Maffei nearly won his seat in 06 with losing 49-51% and forced the Republican into retirement this year. Neither of his two Republican opponents have an FEC filing yet so he essentially is an incumbent at this point.

So while Tom likes to paint a picture that Fossella is 5th among Republicans and Recchia is 24th among Democrats in cash raised let's realize that Fossella is last among incumbents in cash on hand and one of the most prolific spenders of campaign money at this point while Recchia is essentially third of three competitive Democratic challengers. There is also that one minor point that Recchia has more money than Fossella right now.