Michael Bloomberg released his campaign finance numbers this past Friday, at which they disappeared into a post-Thanksgiving news black hole.
But the campaign did make Howard Wolfson available to explain the Bloomberg’s spending.
The campaign had always argued that their biggest asset was Bloomberg’s successful record, and that his enormous warchest wouldn’t be effective if they had no accomplishments to brag about. I asked Wolfson if he thought the mayor could have defeated Bill Thompson if they had spent the same amount of money.
“You know, I don’t know the answer to that,” he said.
Noticing the amoung that had been spent on pizza and coffee, I asked if any expenses could have been curtailed.
If there are any, “Im sure you will bring them to my attention,” Wolfson said.
The “bulk” of the spending, he said, was on advertisements.
In the last filing period, Bloomberg spent $3,883,587 on television ads. (The filing period went from October 20 to November 26. But the ads stopped running on November 3, Election Day. So the $3,883,587 went toward ads that appeared for just 15 days.)
During that same period, the campaign spent $7,576,119 on campaign “direct mail” and “campaign literature.”
