In a field of eight active candidates, there were bound to be some Democrats running for governor yesterday that were going to finish way behind–and six of those on the ballot failed to garner double digit support, while Superintendent Tony Evers was over 40%. But it was the candidate that finished third in the race that was the biggest loser of the night.
Kelda Roys–who finished more than 25% behind Evers–literally mortgaged her future to lose this race. Roys took out a 235-thousand dollar second mortgage on her home to fund much of her campaign. That self-donation made it look like Roys had a strong campaign going–giving her the fundraising lead at one point in the race. But it was just a matter of time before Daniel Bice at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel would have someone drop a dime on Roys and reveal that she really didn’t raise that much on her own.
You may recall that I ran–unsuccessfully–for the State Assembly in 2010. I gave just one-thousand dollars to my campaign–despite plenty of requests from people in the party to contribute more. I just could not justify dipping any further into our personal savings to pursue a job that paid about $50-thousand dollars–and was not guaranteed for any more than two years at a time. Roys chose to borrow 235-thousand dollars–on top of the 390-thousand dollar mortgage she and her husband had refinanced three years ago–to run for an office that pays only about half that annually.
So now Roys and her husband are upside down on their house–owing at least 625-thousand on property assessed at about half a million–and she didn’t come close to winning. Such financial irresponsibility should have disqualified her from consideration in running for any office–but as a Democrat, her supporters likely don’t know the first thing about economics or personal finance–so they were still cool with it.
Roys promises to remain active in politics and will campaign on behalf of Tony Evers. But she has forfeited her claims to be a “struggling, working mother” in any stump speech for any office that she may seek in the future. Roys made a decision to saddle her family with considerable debt just to further her personal political ambitions. So there is no way she can talk about “having to make choices between new outfits and clothes for her kids” or not having the means to pay for medical bills. And she should certainly not put herself out there as an “inspiration for other women”–because no mother should make such foolish choices to literally take money away from the kids that she claims to care so much about.
