The St. Cloud Times reported over the weekend that $350,000 was spent on the two special elections here last December. That's a lot of cabbage (as my uncle would have said) on a job that lasts one year.

The Minnesota DFL and its related legislative caucuses spent about $113,000 on Rep. Larry Haws' successful House 15B race and about $100,000 on Sen. Tarryl Clark's successful Senate 15 campaign, according to Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board annual reports filed at the end of January.

The Republican Party of Minnesota and its legislative caucuses put up about $80,000 for the unsuccessful Senate 15 campaign of Dan "Ox" Ochsner and about $60,000 on the abbreviated House 15B candidacy of Sue Ek, according to their required annual reports

...

The combined candidacies of Ek and her mother, Kay Ek, who replaced her daughter in a write-in campaign after the Minnesota Supreme Court removed Sue Ek from the race, raised almost $25,800 and spent almost $18,900 on the race.

The Haws campaign, by comparison, raised almost $23,700 and spent about $10,200 during the race.

Clark's campaign raised almost $17,900 and spent about $7,400 during the campaign, according to the documents.

But Clark said those numbers were from a report she filed in mid-November, when Gov. Tim Pawlenty set the special election date, and that her total was closer to the $65,000 limit set by the state.

And that doesn't count the third party spending. It's unlikely that would have offset the DFL advantage in direct spending. I like Clark's comment in the end: "I can raise the cash" she's saying, mostly to whomever steps up next.

Categories: politics, St._Cloud