Million Dollar Cornyn
US Senator John Cornyn's campaign isn't cash strapped. Numbers dropped by the campaign on Friday show Cornyn raised $1.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2007, and has $7.5 million cash-on-hand. Not a small amount of money.
That's enough millions to run campaign commercials statewide for about six to seven weeks, unless advertising rates have dropped this year.
By comparison, Democratic candidate State Rep. Rick Noriega's fourth quarter take of $405,000 looks small, but as we've seen in this presidential election, money can't always buy you love. But many times it can. We'll see.
Speaking of money, another pricetag for ya.
Back in November of last year, President Bush made a stop in the affluent Houston neighborhood of River Oaks* to raise money for US Senator John Cornyn.
Houston police shut down portions of the Gulf Freeway and Memorial Drive as President Bush rushed in and out for a fundraiser at the home of Richard and Nancy Kinder. Kinder is director of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, and was president of Enron until 1996.
Figures on how much it cost the City of Houston to shut down roads and put in place extra police for the President's visit weren't available the week of the fundraiser. It wasn't until several weeks later when the city estimated the cost to Houston taxpayers for Bush's visit to raise money for Cornyn was $80,000. Also not a small number.
*George H.W. Bush represented River Oaks when he was a congressman in the sixties. Gotta love blogging -- endless cyberspace to throw out random trivia or go off on a meandering tangent.
