Lingle, Flush With Cash And On Message
01/25/2012
Chad Blair/Civil Beat
Linda Lingle! You've just raised $1.8 million in 82 days! How do you feel?
"Humbled," the Republican U.S. Senate candidate told reporters after a campaign appearance Wednesday in Kaneohe.
Humbled, maybe. Prepared to milk the fundraising success for all it's worth? Absolutely.
Lingle's campaign announced her fourth-quarter Federal Election Commission report early enough in the day to get the attention of a lot of the media. No State of the State address or State of the Union address to compete with for headlines.
Well before midday, Lingle's big haul was the top breaking news on most Hawaii news outlets, including the website of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, where an ad for Lingle has been running in the top lefthand corner since she launched her campaign Oct. 11.
Nationally, the news made the political blogs and Capitol newsites, like this item in The Hill headlined, "Lingle posts huge fundraising quarter in Hawaii."
Here at home, Lingle delivered a speech to the Kaneohe Business Group at the Pohai Nani Retirement Community auditorium. The talk, a routine campaign appearance, had been planned weeks in advance.
But reporters drove over the Pali and Likelike highways so they could interview Lingle about her good news. That meant the story would likely continue into the evening news and Thursday morning.
Pleased, Lingle's media-savvy campaign team tweeted (@lingle2012, 1,937 followers) out the news about the news coverage:
@HawaiiNewsNow @KHONnews @StarAdvertiser @CivilBeat here covering @linda_lingle talking w/ Kaneohe small biz.
The tweet included a link to a photo, ow.ly/i/qHFQ. That's me on the left, in the billowing, salmon-colored shirt.
