Susan Manilow, a Chicago philanthropist and Democratic Party supporter, has financially supported her son Edwin Eisendrath’s gubernatorial candidacy. Last December she gave $10,000 to his campaign and loaned it an additional $40,000. For a single donor that’s quite a bit. Her husband and Eisendrath’s step-father, Lewis Manilow, also gave $50,000 in loans and donations.
Last Friday, however, Susan Manilow got serious about her son to the tune of $500,000 (yes, all those zeros are correct).
That eclipses (there’s no other word) all other previous donations to Eisendrath, who had raised only a fifth of that ($100,950) in donations by the end of the December filing - and who’s previous single highest donation had been $15,000 from a relative.
Not surprisingly, Eisendrath’s campaign started looking for ad time the same day as the mega-donation (last Friday). Rich Miller has said the ad buy was supposed to be for $1 million - which is more than Eisendrath has reported on hand, so it will be interesting to see where the other money comes from - although it looks like it will mainly be from family for now. [Update: on March 8th two $100,000 donations were reported from Edwin Eisendrath III and Edwin Eisendrath, Jr..]
The temptation is to treat this as a horse race and analyze what Governor Rod Blagojevich recently raised - but while I touch on Blagojevich’s money below, a “horse race” isn’t the right metaphor. This is more like a poker game, with Blagojevich sitting at the table with deep pockets, and Eisendrath finally getting enough money together to ante up. Eisendrath can now get some cards - and may even play a good hand if speculation is true (hat tip to Bill Baar).
Blagojevich, likely for the first time, has actually been out-raised by Eisendrath for a current month, March (as of Monday the 6th), for contributions $500 or above, where he has brought in $328,960.
Given Eisendrath’s late start, the media campaign on TV with a pick up from the press will be crucial. Eisendrath needs something pretty dramatic to win.
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