OH-18: Republican Dailey's fuzzy math not as impressive as portrayed...

HT: WMD which ran Dailey's press release with the appropriate amount of muted partisan praise:

(Mt. Vernon, OH) – Republican candidate for Congress in Ohio's 18th District Fred Dailey filed his 2nd quarter fundraising totals and more than doubled the amount of money his campaign had raised in any previous reporting period. Dailey's $112,000 cash on hand consists primarily of local contributors from across Eastern Ohio.

Given that Dailey has filed only five other prior reports (once you exclude all of the amended reports he filed... on average of one per reporting period), the fact that this comes in as first is hardly impressive or surprising.  After all, shouldn't the period between the primary and general election be the prime fundraising period for a candidate?  Would you really expect that Dailey would have raised more money as an unnominated challenger during the off-election year?

Oh, and about that $112,000 cash on hand?  That's because Dailey hasn't paid off his primary campaign debts off yet.  If he paid that $45,000 debt off, he'd have a little over $67,000.00 on hand.

And as for the incumbent Congressman Zack Space?  He raised nearly three times as much money as Dailey did since the last reporting period.

And once Space pays off his campaign debts, he'll still have over $1.136 million on hand.

That's a SEVENTEEN TO ONE cash-on-hand advantage for Space.  I know why Dailey hasn't paid off his campaign debt.  One, if I recall, the debt is entirely a loan made by the candidate in the last reporting period.  Two, you have to have at least six figures in your CoH by this period normally to be treated as a serious contender by national party operatives.

The NRCC doesn't have the financial resources to bankroll Dailey's campaign, especially with it already playing defense in at least four other Congressional races in Ohio alone.

How bad is it for Dailey?  NixGuy, the only Ohio conservative blogger who has written like Dailey was a credible threat hasn't even posted on Dailey's press release yet.

Anyone who says a candidate facing a 17:1 fundraising disadvantage this far out from election day is a credible threat simply has no credibility.  And I dare any of Dailey's scant supporters to name an instance in modern American politics when a candidate defeated an incumbent despite a 1:17 fundraising disadvantage.

That, my friends, is a candidate who really is getting whupped on fundraising.  (If Stivers is "whipping" Kilroy because he raised $30k more than Kilroy but still lags significantly behind on Cash-on-Hand, what do you call it when someone outfundraises their opponent by over $200k in the same period?)

I call it re-election.