Money

Southern Pines has traditionally been a town where a campaign for Town Council has not been a very expensive endeavor. It has been more about having the right platform and running an effective, but not necessarily expensive, campaign. In fact, my first two successful campaigns for Council (2003 and 2005) cost about $800 each time. Even when I ran in a highly contested race for Mayor, I purposely stayed under the $3,000 threshold for campaign reporting. I have also never solicited campaign donations or accepted them from people living outside Southern Pines' jurisdiction.

Unfortunately, not everyone thinks $3,000 is enough to run an effective campaign for office in Southern Pines. In the 2007 Mayoral election, my opponent raised and spent over $14,000, a large portion of which came from out-of-towners, special interests, people with business before the Council at the time, and even a Raleigh-based political action committee.

It seems that trend of big outside money is alive and well for 2009. Based on early campaign filings and reports, one candidate for a four-year seat who originally filed documents showing intent to stay under $3,000 in campaign money has amended their filing and started collecting big money from outside interests.

Is this legal? Of course.

Is it right? Is the significant amount of outside money coming into Southern Pines elections a step in the right direction? Does all this money really make a difference? Those are all questions we must each answer for ourselves.

We heard a lot of talk about "change" in last year's national elections. Well, in my opinion, all this outside money that has started pouring into Southern Pines elections is change I CAN'T believe in.

If it bothers you that out of town and special interests are trying to influenece our election, please take some time to go up to Carthage and review the campaign finance documents of candidates present and past.

This site is the personal property of Chris Smithson. It is hosted locally by ConnectNC and is not part of, affiliated with, or even close to being an official site of the Town of Southern Pines.