At the same time, he spent more than he raised -- with nearly $9 of every $10 going to buy conservative donor databases, send solicitations and pay for consultants and other fundraising expenses, according to an Associated Press review of his campaign finance report.
There are no rules governing how much a candidate should spend on fundraising, but Cao's ratio is unusually high, particularly for a sitting congressman.
Since starting his re-election campaign last year, at least $640,000 of the $874,602 Cao has reported spending has gone toward fundraising -- about 75 percent. Instead of promoting him in the district, most of the money went to a network of conservative Washington-area consultants.
The article is written in a way that highlights Cao's difficulty courting conservative donors after voting in favor of health care reform. I'm sure that's true but the real story here looks to me to be the Congressman's high "burn rate" in his fundraising operation. Is he being taken advantage of by professional consultants? Or is the real flaw here the conflict between trying to represent a Democratic district with a candidate funded by national conservative interests?
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