Jim Lang's race, and self-financed candidates

Flower Mound mayoral candidate Jim Lang is beginning to play his cards for the May 13 race, which he needs to do early to unseat a well-liked incumbent. Jim has said he's running on an economic-development campaign. So far he's crafted an intelligent message, and I'll be interested to hear how Jody responds.

Jim is quoted in yesterday's Flower Mound Leader (article not yet posted online) that he'll pay for his campaign out of his own pocket, that he doesn't want to appear to be beholden to anyone who would write him a check. Sounds noble, right? Perhaps, but I think it's the wrong way to run a race.

The best candidates are those who solicit a broad base of financial support from the constituents they represent. Let's say you need $25,000 to finance a campaign for Flower Mound mayor. What I'd love to see in a candidate's campaign finance report is a couple hundred gifts between $5 and $100, all or most of that money coming from the constituents the candidate would serve. With this kind of broad-based support, I wouldn't be so leery of having the balance made up by personal loans and/or by a couple of larger checks. Better to be beholden to everyone than no one. Candidates who self-finance campaigns sometimes turn out to be aloof in office, which can turn into misguided decisions or plain ineffectiveness. A candidate who is seasoned in grass-roots fund-raising is more likely to govern with a stronger, deeper and ongoing connection to his/her constituents, which leads to getting more done with more community consensus.

Having a broad base of local financial support shows that a candidate is a) well-connected in the community, and therefore is already a person of influence, and b) is willing to work a little harder up front to listen to feedback from constituents.

Self-financed candidates aren't the worst, and some self-financed candidates turn out to be good public leaders. Michael Bloomberg was re-elected New York City's mayor last year by a 20-point advantage. If he hadn't done a reasonably good job in his first term, no amount of money out of his own billionaire's wallet could won him a second term.

The worst candidates are well-financed candidates who rely on a few big checks written by out-of-area friends and lobbyists, with very little money raised from local voters. That's when you have to wonder who owns the candidate. At least in my way, we all own the candidate.