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Keadle backs bid with $250K
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Published: October 20, 2009
Iredell County Commissioner Scott Keadle said he is serious about his run for the U.S. House of Representatives.
And he's putting his money where his mouth is.
Keadle, a Moor-esville Republican, cut a check to his campaign for $250,000 in an effort to jump-start his bid for the 10th Congressional District seat.
According to reports filed with the Federal Elections Commission last week, Keadle, a dentist with a practice in Salisbury, has a total of $260,600 in cash on hand through the end of September.
U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, the 10th District incumbent — and the man Keadle will have to get past in a GOP primary election next spring — has $158,271 in campaign funds available to him.
"So we're about $100,000 ahead of him right now," Keadle said. "That gives us the resources we need to raise even more funds and have what we are going to need to put on a winning campaign."
McHenry raised $340,364 in 2009, but his campaign has also spent $253,593 during the year. Most of that money — $187,593 — has gone toward "operating expenditures."
McHenry also paid himself back — in three separate payments — a total of $65,500 during the year.
McHenry received $200,505 from political actions committees (PACs) and $139,303 from individual contributions.
Dee Stewart is the senior political adviser for the McHenry for Congress campaign.
He would not comment specifically on Keadle as a challenger but said McHenry is anxious to begin campaigning again.
"Patrick takes every election very seriously," Stewart said. "And he looks forward to seeing all his constituents on the campaign trail."
Stewart said McHenry has established himself in the 10th District — which includes the southern one-third of Iredell County — and that the electorate there has demonstrated that at the polls.
"The voters of the 10th District have spoken loud and clear," Stewart said. "They have elected him three times by convincing margins and clearly appreciate the great leadership he is providing in Congress."
But Keadle says he actually did better than McHenry in the 11 precincts the two men had in common last year in the November elections.
Keadle, 45, pointed to figures that showed the margin of victory in his county commission race to be 40 percent in those 11 precincts and that McHenry's was 34 percent.
Charlotte Mayor Patrick McCrory won by an average margin of 48 percent in those precincts.
"So I'm just glad I'm not running against McCrory," Keadle said. "But McHenry is another subject."
McHenry, who turns 34 on Thursday, first won the 10th District seat in 2004 and was the youngest member of Congress during his first two terms in office.
In 2008, McHenry beat two attorneys — both former military officers — to win the election.
He beat Lance Sigmond, a retired Marine Corps officer, in the Republican primary and Daniel Johnson, a former Naval officer who lost a leg saving a sailor during a ship accident.
Of the two elections, the GOP primary is likely to be considered the more important one and will be where a good portion of the money is spent in the campaign by both sides. The 10th District is solidly Republican.
Keadle said he hopes McHenry will agree to debate him sometime before the primary election.
"I'd debate him any time, any where and as many times as he like," Keadle said.
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