Follow the money
Consider this a Civics 101 lesson. One of the easiest ways to find out who is running for a particular office is to check their campaign filings. It also is one of the hardest. The reason is simple. Good candidates know they have to file who they are getting money from and why. Bad candidates don’t.
By out math, there are seven Greenville County Council seats up for election this year. As of right now, there only have been filings in two of them. Now yes, technically, no one has to official announce their plans until March 15, which is when political primary filings starts. And actually technically, they don’t have to file until July 15 to get on the November ballot.
But we all know that most of the decisions will be made in the June Primary of who is going to be on the November ballot.
So, which races are seeing filings? District 21, which is the seat that Jim Burns is stepping down from after 12 years in office. The first person to have filed is Rick Roberts, who filed way back in November. Roberts’s latest filing shows his campaign has garnered $17,000 so far, but the $10,000 that comes from a loan and another $5,000 comes from personal funds. The rest appears to have come from family members, or at least people with the last name Roberts.
Stacy Kuper, who has announced for the seat publicaly, has raised $13,550 to date, but that is coming from 17 different people right now. That is a good sign for Kuper.
Meanwhile, Council chairman Bob Taylor has filed his reports, which means he is at least gearing up for a fourth term representing what is often just called the “Bob Jones” area of Greenville. Aka District 22. Taylor is sitting on roughly $600. Does that mean Taylor is vulnerable? Likely not, since his last election campaign disclosures from 2012 show he raised no money. HMMMMM.