Westlund falling short, only at 5% of goal so far

Over at Loaded Orygun, blogger Torrid has done the math and found the Westlund campaign falling short on signature gathering. In the last two months, they've only collected 1400 signatures - about 23 per day.

At that rate, the Westlund campaign will qualify for the 2006 election sometime in spring 2008. Put another way, they need to ramp up from their 23/day rate to around 140/day between today and the end of August deadline. Of course, that's just to hit the statutory requirement of 18,365 signatures. They've set an internal goal of 30,000 to account for invalid signatures, so it's even more than that.

From Loaded Orygun:

Was Dycus just giving me the number she has banked and verified, and there are dozens of volunteers holding signatures on sheets out in the field? Maybe so. Did the campaign set a high goal to cover themselves, but don't really think it will take that much cushion to make the nut? Very possibly; with their strategy of waiting until after the primary, they can hope to screen potential signers better. And is 18,000 valid signatures still a pretty easy goal for a statewide signature campaign? It should be, in my opinion.

But this guy needs a tidal wave of enthusiasm to have any kind of shot at the goobernor's seat, and when the two major candidates come out victorious two weeks from now, they're going to be hitting the ground running as well.

Head over to Loaded Orygun to discuss.

May 01, 2006 Posted in elsewhere.