Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Richard Mourdock Using the New Math?

The late and legendary comedian George Carlin has a great bit entitled "People I Can Do Without." That list includes, among others, "a dentist with blood in his hair," "a proctologist with poor depth perception," and "a pimp who drives a Toyota Corolla."

If I had such a list, it would definitely include "a state treasurer who can't add."

Republican incumbent treasurer, Richard Mourdock, has the following figures on his 2009 year-end campaign finance report:

C-O-H at the beginning of the reporting period: $34,351

Contributions raised: $175,780

Adding what you gained to what you had seems pretty easy, and it's clear our answer is $210,131. So, um, why does Mourdock's report show only $194,422?


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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

If I am reading the finance report correctly, line 16 says he only has to add up lines 14 and 15C for column B, so the report does not have him figure in the 34,351 in column B, that is figured in column A.

Anonymous said...

If you got out from in front of your computer every now and then, instead of throwing barbs over the internet, you'd understand how to read a campaign finance report.

Anonymous said...

I hate to say it but I think you need to check your math. The numbers you posted do not match what the Election Division site is showing. The numbers on the official site seem to add up.

Anonymous said...

I always thought the reports were idiot proof...but you clearly can't understand which lines need to be added up to get the total. You need to get your money back from school for your terrible reading & math skills.

Paul K. Ogden said...

I've always found the reports a little convulated on how they're set up. I think they could be laid out better.

I thought it was interesting that it was marked as an annual report, but then in another part said it was just for the last part of 2009. I'm pretty sure that, as he was not involved in a race in 2009, he only needs to file the one annual report and it should cover 1/1/2009 to 12/31/2009. Probably it was just an error - the person marking it as covering only the last part of 2009.

Anonymous said...

I checked the report. Wish Mourdock had made a mistake, but it looks correct to me and I have done a lot of these over the years. Paul ... statewides have to file 2 reports a year now. 1/1 - 6/30 and 7/1 - 12/31.

Anonymous said...

As someone who has filled out plenty of these, the report is correct. As well, the Election Division software automatically fills in these fields based on the contributions and expenditures filed.

He raised $175K for the YEAR but the $34K on hand is for the start of the REPORTING PERIOD, which began July 1. You don't add those two things together.