Karen Keith campaign contributions: Spending like there's no tomorrow

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Click the link to see a scan of Karen Keith's pre-primary contributions and expenditures filing for Tulsa County Commissioner, District 2. Karen Keith, a Democrat, has no opposition in the primary, but will face the winner of Tuesday's Republican primary between challenger Sally Bell and incumbent Randi Miller.

Karen Keith raised $73,392 between Feb. 28 and July 15, 2008, of which $16,574 was in amounts of $200 or less. She has spent $42,471 -- an astonishing amount given the lack of a primary. Most of that has gone to indirect costs: $17,900 was spent on outside consultants, $5,000 on "copyrighting" [sic -- probably means copywriting], $4,365 on staff labor, $850 for logo and artwork, $900 on a website. (Hosting is relatively inexpensive, so I assume most of that cost is for a consultant to design and launch the site.) Facilities cost -- utilities, rent, phone, water cooler, alarm monitoring, moving -- total about $4,300. Only about $5,000 has gone into direct voter contact -- mail pieces, phone calls, and materials for door-to-door campaigning.

That's a very high overhead operation, and it shrinks her fundraising advantage considerably. A grassroots candidate backed by passionate volunteer workers and advisers could match her voter contact effort with only a fraction of the budget.

Here are Keith's top donors. Spelling as on the form, parenthetical remarks are mine. I will add other donors of more than $200 as I have time, later. All donors of any amount are listed, in alphabetical order, on Keith's C-1 filing.

$3,000 - Amos Adetula (Wilson's BBQ),
$2,750 - Sharon King Davis
$2,500 - Gary Burton
$1,500 - Patrick & Peggy Keith (Bixby), Robert & Roxana Lorton (publisher emeritus, Tulsa World), Danny & Betty O'Brian (Randi Miller's biggest donor)
$1,250 - George & Edwynne Krumme
$1,000 - Tom & Sue Bennett, Pat & Margaret Cremin, John & Kelsy Eakin, Jim & Sally Frasier, Greg Gray & Sharon Bell, Clydella & David Hentschel, Just Progress, George Kravis, David Sharp, Sid Shupack

Mr. O'Brian appears to be hedging his bets.

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8 Comments

The A Team said:

$200 from Harry Potter at 1924 s. utica avenue #514?

That's funny, since I heard that He Who Must Not Be Named is managing Karen's campaign.

Bob said:

Of interest is that Pat Cremin is the head employment counsel at Hall Estill. Pat and his right hand man Steve Broussard are defending Randi Miller in the Bjorkland lawsuit.

Bob said:

Is Ms. Keith using local political-operative-in-the-black-arts Jim Burdge?

Jan Thomas said:

Sure seems like there are a lot of realtors on this list! What's up?

sbtulsa Author Profile Page said:

how do you evaluate karen keith. did she not come in during the misfortune regim? other than her personna as a perky news anchor at channel 2, what's she accomplished except stay under the radar?

this appears to be another plant for the elite as her campaign budget would indicate.

Mark Author Profile Page said:

You're right on about the overhead. The $900 on a website was not well-spent. She is photogenic; but the website is otherwise bland, extremely shallow and uninformative. Oddly, it seems to make no mention of her being a Democrat . . . unless I missed something.

BK said:

Isn't her husband running her campaign ?

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This page contains a single entry by Michael Bates published on July 26, 2008 7:19 PM.

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