Dale Folwell: The Leading Fiscal Conservative

Public Policy Polling released a new poll today showing that Dale Folwell is leading in the race for Lieutenant Governor at 20%, Dan Forest coming up second at 15%. I'm going to share a few thoughts here. There has been a BIG bru ha ha about Forest being the "tea party darling", how Folwell should not have even gotten IN the race because Forest had been campaigning since early last year, so forth. None of that has made any sense to me.

If you're "tea party", you are going to know the work that has been accomplished by Dale Folwell. There should not be a doubt in anyone's mind that he is FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE. He has saved the tax payers of this state MILLIONS. Through the many bills he has sponsored and co sponsored, he has made the government more efficient:

• How would you feel about a law that could lower your property taxes and cut down on your interactions with the government? See H1779 legislation
• Why should you pay for the lifetime medical bills of someone who only worked for the state for 5 years + 1 day? See S837 legislation
• Did you realize that with life expectancy, state employees could be retired with pension and healthcare benefits for longer than they worked? See H1221 legislation

{ SEE MORE examples of what Dale has done to make government more efficient, getting it off our backs and saving us money. }

We are watching Raleigh (and Washington D.C.) like hawks these days to see how they are spending our hard earned money. Something I have picked up since the 2010 elections is the desire to see how a candidate is spending the money entrusted to them by donors. So in light of today's recent polling, it struck me to look up both candidate's campaign finance reports to see how things were going.

Just in first quarter of this year:

	Donations	Money Spent	Difference
Dale Folwell	$142,349.58	$125,951.30	+$16398.28
Dan Forest	$92,108.80	$118,358.13	$-26249.33

Note only about $7000 of Dale's was raised before he announced he would be running for Lieutenant Governor. Oh but wait. There has been NUMEROUS debates in the social media community from the Forest side on how Dale should not have even entered the race, because Dan had already been campaigning for the position for almost a year. Lets examine that a little closer:

Last year, Dan:

	Collected	Spent	Difference
from 1/1/11 to 6/30/11	$100,201.67	$38,771.71	+$61429.96
from 7/7/11 to 12/31/11	$119,040.90	$151,510.77	-$32469.87
			Year end difference being: +$28960.09

So total for the Lieutenant Governor race, Dan Forest has collected (on record) a whopping $311,351.37, spent $308,640.61, netting a plus of  $2710.76 ... and less than a week before the election, he is still five points behind in the polls and falling?

Is that a good return on donor's investments? Is he efficiently running his campaign? By these numbers Dale's leadership and insight proves to be the more fiscally responsible choice in this race.