Much has been written about the efficient fundraising capabilities of Gov. Bobby Jindal, and rightly so.
He has traveled to the four corners of the nation soliciting campaign funds ostensibly for this year’s re-election campaign and has raised, depending on whose figures one chooses to use, between $9 million and $12 million.
Virtually unmentioned in all the coverage of his numerous trips and his weekly visits to Protestant churches for the purposes of either direct fundraising or building a base for future solicitations is his propensity to spend his money with out-of-state vendors in efforts to further his political career.
Since 2003, Jindal has spent an estimated $16.5 million on polling, political advertising, printing, direct mail, telephone banks, office rent, fundraising expenses, and campaign staff.
Of that amount, $6.2 million, or 37.6 percent of the total, has gone to pay out-of-state companies for such services as direct mail, polling, printing, and for automated telephone calling—businesses one might justifiably expect to find operating in Louisiana.
That could emit a hollow ring to his oft-repeated lament of the state’s losing its “best and brightest” young people to other states that offer better employment opportunities.
One of his favorite vendors is a company called Olsen & Shuvalov of Austin, Texas. He paid that firm $827,400 in 30 separate transactions between April of 2007 and March of this year for printing and mailing expenses. The payments ranged from a low of $6,353.86 last August to a high of $94,432.30 in June of 2007.
That amount, however, pales in comparison to the money paid to two separate firms in Alexandria, Virginia. His campaign, in fact, seems to favor Virginia companies.
The Jindal campaign paid Todd & Castellanos Creative Group nearly $2.7 million in 24 separate payments for media advertising buys, all during 2003 in his unsuccessful first run at the governor’s office. He didn’t use the firm during his 2007 campaign.
His campaign paid Onmessage, Inc., more than $1.3 million in 30 payments between March 2007 and February of this year for research, advertising, production, and consulting expenses.
A partial list of other out-of-state Jindal campaign expenditures includes:
• The Anderson Group of Bowie, Maryland—$300,000 in 13 payments between May 2003 and March 2004 for polling, consulting and statewide surveys;
• National Media of Alexandria, Virginia—$176,600 in 19 payments, all in August, September, and October of 2007, for advertising expenses;
• FLS-DCI of Phoenix, Arizona—$122,500 in seven payments between February 2004 and October 2007 for telephone bank costs and fundraising expenses;
• Mary Kate Johnson of Bethesda, Maryland—$99,000 in 22 payments between August 2008 and January 2010 for fundraising expenses;
• Stormo & Associates of Caledonia, Michigan—$86,600 in 11 payments for research and consulting from February 2007 through January 2008;
• Advanced Mailing Services of Woodbridge, Virginia—$84,400 in eight payments from October 2009 through February 2010 for mailing expenses;
• Political Solutions of Washington, D.C.—$81,500 in three payments for printing expenses, in July, September and October of 2007;
• National Cable Communications of New York, New York—$75,200 in two payments in September 2003 for television advertising;
• Southwest Publishing and Mailing Corp. of Topeka, Kansas—$69,400 in seven payments for mailing expenses from March of 2010 through January of this year;
• Aristotle International of Washington, D.C.—$65,300 in 30 payments from December 2006 through January of this year for office expenses, “E-donation fees,” and computer software;
• Strategic Direction.com of Tallahassee, Florida—$53,000 in three payments for automated calling and campaign consulting in October and November of 2003 and February 2004;
• Nova List, LLC, of Herndon, Virginia—$41,600 in five payments from September 2009 and March 2010 for mailing expenses;
• The McIntosh Company, Inc., of Dallas, Texas—$29,600 in six payments from June of 2009 through February of this year for fundraising expenses;
• Response America of Arlington, Virginia—$23,900 in five payments for mailing expenses from April of 2010 through January of this year;
• Praxis List Co. of Austin, Texas—$16,100 for mailing expenses in January and March of this year.
Given the fact that 47 payments totaling $581,700 were made to out-of-state firms for mailing expenses from August 22, 2008—about seven months after he took office—through March 31 of this year, one has to wonder what those mail-outs were for. His campaign for re-election has barely gotten underway and there doesn’t seem to have been an unusually large number of Jindal campaign mail-outs in Louisiana residents’ mail boxes over the past three years.
One must also be wondering if there are no Louisiana firms capable of handling telephone banks, polling, printing, political consulting, and mail-outs.
Or does the governor feel that he needs the business and political resources in other states just in case he should one day decide he does not have the job he wants, after all?
There must be scores of Louisiana printing companies, political consultants, direct mail services, advertising agencies, and polling and phone bank services wondering the same thing.
Louisiana Voice 