Terrence Wall’s campaign successfully raised $250,000 of his own money!

Did you hear the big news?!?!?

With great fanfare yesterday morning, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Terrence Wall told everyone and anyone who was paying attention that he raised a lot of money for his burgeoning U.S. Senate campaign. Not only did Wall issue a press release, but he also sent out a tweet via Twitter, while also adding a Facebook post for good measure, all of which touted his campaign’s “growing momentum.” In each announcement, Wall announced he had “raised more than $500,000” for his Senate bid and tweeting his supporters: “I am humbled by your support…”

At first blush, raising $500,000 for a U.S. Senate campaign in only two and a half months might seem impressive, but scratch just beneath the surface of Terrence Wall’s press releases and tweets and it becomes crystal clear his campaign’s “growing momentum” isn’t quite as impressive as he wants folks to believe. After all, let’s not forget Terrence Wall travels in some impressive economic circles, so raising $500,000 shouldn’t really be that hard. In fact, in a fundraising email Wall sent in November, he cited the importance of raising $500,000 to “demonstrate the viability of the campaign,” which seemed to be a pretty unambiguous fundraising goal. But as impressive (or unimpressive) as Terrence Wall raising $500,000 might be, it’s important to keep one key fact in mind – Terrence Wall didn’t raise $500,000 for his U.S. Senate campaign.

Only Terrence Wall – famous for his numerous tax dodging schemes and elitist “Clubs” – would find a way to raise $180,252 and call it more than $500,000. See, despite all of Terrence Wall’s press releases, tweets, and Facebook posts touting the fact that he raised $500,000, he really only raised roughly $250,000 from contributors other than himself. Wall raised $511,452 over seven weeks, but that total includes a $275,000 loan from the candidate, according to Wall’s campaign. If you subtract Wall’s personal “bailout” to his campaign, his campaign really only raised $236,452 from donors not named Terrence Wall, and according to WisPolitics, $56,200 of the money Terrence Wall raised from outside donors is for the general election (if Wall even makes it that far) and therefore can’t be spent in the primary. So in fact, the amount Wall raised for his primary election is only $180,252.

I don’t presume to be the world’s foremost expert on political campaigns, but it does seem more than a little odd that Terrence Wall would attempt to mislead (at best) or outright deceive (at worst) the very folks he aspires to represent, and I can’t help but wonder about a candidate like Terrence Wall who seems all too willing to “cook the books” when it comes to his campaign’s financial dealings.

Jim at Pretty Important Politics and Josh Orton at MyDD.com have their own takes on this.