Who's Counting?

I wrote about Bob's fiscal habits in my last post, and CuriosityCat told me my argument was pathetic. Of course a quick review of the candidates' returns shows that Bob has double the debt load of the next biggest debtor, having borrowed almost as much as he has raised. So he's the worst in terms of absolute volume of debt, and the second worst of the top four in terms of his ratio. In strange concidence, he also has relatively fewer, richer donors, as you can see from the DemocraticSpace analysis.

For those of you who were told there would be no math, I have done some more for you. The money reported on the second return covers only the second week in November (the first return covers the whole race up to that point). Staying on debt for just a moment, we see that Bob has borrowed another $140,000 from his brother, and Dion has borrowed another $50,000 (not from Bob's brother). Iggy and Gerard have no new debt.

But forget debt; budgeting is boring. I like momentum. The money raised from individual donors in the second report is:

Ignatieff: $44.5K
Kennedy: $30K
Rae: $23K
Dion: $11K

By all accounts Iggy is the front-runner, but it's nice to see that Gerard Kennedy is the one still inspiring new supporters to donate to his cause in greater numbers than the rest. It's also inspiring to think that you don't need to be able to borrow three quarters of a million dollars from your brother to run for the leadership of the party. As for winning it, time will tell.