The uninvited, and other campaign money stories

This might be a first in my endless decades of political reporting: A campaign announces it’s holding a fundraiser in a press release, then bars the media from the event.

Yesterday Mayor Nutter’s re-election campaign included the following in its statement accompanying the release of its 2010 campaign finance report: “Among other campaign events for February, is the first scheduled fundraiser for Nutter’s campaign tomorrow, Tuesday, February 1, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., at the Comcast Center.”

I called to say I’d be dropping by, and was informed the event is closed to the media.

Which is no big deal. A lot of politicians, (including in the past, Mayor Nutter) have welcomed reporters to fundraisers. Others, Ed Rendell among them, never invited us and didn’t talk about money.

But why go out of your way to tell reporters about an event you’re icing them out of?

Monday, the Nutter campaign was legally required to state its campaign receipts and expenditures for 2010, and the numbers in the report weren’t exactly eye-popping for an incumbent mayor.

So the campaign put out a statement and appended a list of contributions they’d gotten in January, after the reporting period had closed, so their numbers would look bigger. And just to tell everyone they’re actively raising dough, they touted their fundraising event for the very next evening. But for some reason, they don’t want reporters inside.

Fine. I wash my hair on Tuesday anyway.

Jeff Shields of the Inquirer spent some time combing over campaign finance reports for City Council incumbents and potential candidates. Among the nuggets he reports is the eye-popping $318,242 that retiring City Council President Anna Verna has on hand. If I were a candidate for anything, I’d make sure she got a candy-gram. Read the rest of Shield’s findings here.

And the Daily News’ Catherine Lucey reports the Nutter re-election team has hired a campaign manager. He’s Kevin Kinross, who ran Dan Onorato’s unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign.

Guess the Maytag repairman wasn’t available.