Alex Sink's Team Plays the Populist Card in Low Expectation Fund-raising Drive

Jim Cassady, the campaign manager for Democratic state CFO Alex Sinks gubernatorial campaign, just sent out an e-mail raising expectations for his candidates fund-raising efforts.

Cassady said that the campaign had a goal of raising $10,000 this week -- a staggeringly low total with only one week left until the second quarter fund-raising deadline. Not surprisingly, Cassady announced that they have beaten that figure.

We already beat that goal by raising $10,370 for Alex's campaign, wrote Cassady. But, you know, with everything that's at stake we can't let up for a second. That's why we've set a new goal of getting that number up to $15,000 by the end of today.

Cassady also stressed Sink was an outsider -- something the candidate did when she filed her paperwork at the Division of Elections last week when she played up her background in the private sector.

Make no mistake -- with the Tallahassee status quo working against us, there's a lot of work left to do, wrote Cassady. Florida is a tough state to campaign in. It has 18 million people, 10 TV markets, and the drive from Pensacola to Miami takes 11 hours. Winning takes two things -- a statewide network of committed supporters, and the money to compete on the airwaves.

Look for Sink to continue pounding these themes -- she is an outsider, all Tallahassee is working against her -- as the race continues. With independent candidate Bud Chiles polling in the mid-teens and hurting Sink in the polls, she has to try to steal some of his thunder.