Mayor Mike Rawlings's chief campaign-runner, Mari Woodlief of Allyn Media, responded this afternoon to questions I had posed about the $270,000 paid by the Rawlings campaign to consultant Kathy Nealy, whose offices were searched by the FBI Monday as part of the federal investigation of County Commissioner John Wiley Price. Please see Woodlief's memo below.
In it, she says $50,000 of the money turned over to Nealy went to pay for phone banks. Other political consultants tell me that phone bank workers get from $10 to $15 an hour. At $10 an hour, $50,000 would pay for 10 workers working eight-hour days and 40-hour weeks to accomplish three solid months of phoning. At $15 an hour, it would pay for a little over two months of phoning.
Woodlief says Nealy spent $15,000 on "religious outreach," which includes "securing endorsements." The really big money was $65,000 for the traditional "walk program," which includes some printing costs and a lot of walking.
Anyway, you read it and draw your own conclusions. It's after the jump.
I asked Woodief about the FBI's visit to her own offices the same day they dumped Nealy's office. She said it was all very friendly. She is not a "person of interest," she said, and the FBI left empty-handed.
