[img]1792|right|Jim Clarke||no_popup[/img]On the day after longshot City Council candidate Chris Sherwin formally withdraw from the April 8 race and four days before the entry deadline, Jim Clarke, running for re-election says he will need to raise more money this time than he did two years ago.
His pals on the dais like to kid him that not an event has happened in Culver City – involving more than one person – without Mr. Ubiquity’s presence.
He is not there merely to be seen. He comes and leaves informed.
Soon he will resume his door-to-door campaign. No, as far as anyone knows, he did not do that during the regular Council year.
But the penthouse of Mr. Clarke’s revolving mind is monopolized by costs, three months out from Election Day.
“You have your filing fee, your walk sheets, you have to get your lawn signs, you have to get your literature and your mailers ready,” he said. “That stuff adds up.”
The matter of fundraising sunnily strolls into Mr. Clarke’s perpetually animated mind every morning before, during and after breakfast.
Even though hardly anyone outside of the candidates is thinking Election Day, “you have to pay the bills. So this is a time when you try to get money.”
Potential donors are inclined “to hold off because they want to see what the field is.”
At this moment, only the incumbents from the two Council seats at stake – Mayor Jeff Cooper and Mr. Clarke – have completed the formal paperwork.
The other two surviving candidates, Christopher Patrick King, owner of a mortgage company, and veteran officeseeker Gary Abrams, have until 5:30 Monday afternoon to submit their paperwork.
Mr. Clarke recalled he raised “between $23,000 and $25,000” two years ago when he won the last half of the unexpired term of Scott Malsin, who resigned.
“I was not able to do all the mailings I wanted to do. This time I probably need to raise $30,000.”
Mr. Clarke, elder statesman of the City Council, chuckled. “In the old days, you could have run for governor of California with that much money,” he said.
(To be continued)
