The case of the senator and the masseuse / researcher

Lot's of stuff flying around in comments about this story, and perhaps not enough facts.

The story began when the recent campaign finance disclosure reports were filed. They list money taken in and spent by candidates from July 1 to the end of 2005.

Illinois state senator Mike Jacobs' report, under itemized expenditures, near the bottom of the first page displayed, lists, along with $4,616.71 spent at The Blue Ribbon Steakhouse and $6,084.17 at Johnny's Italian Steakhouse, an expenditure of $2000.00 to a young woman for the stated purpose of research.

It was then noticed that a woman of that exact name advertises her professional massage services at a downtown Moline massage establishment on a publicly available web page.

Could be she's an excellent researcher as well as masseuse. Or perhaps beating 1,000,000 to 1 odds, these aren't the same woman. It would be easy to clear it up.

So e-mails were sent to Senator Jacobs' staff and to him directly asking for any explanation of what sort of research this woman did. A staffer responded that he'd look into it, but other than that, there's been no further response from either.

Them's the facts. Make of them what you will.

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Note: It's worthy of noting that some, though not all, of the thousands spent at steakhouses were for the purpose of fundraisers in order to bring in more money.

I wonder how much Rumler spent on pancake batter for his fundraiser. It would be interesting, especially to candidates and consultants, to compare the rate of return on lavish spreads vs. grassroots events.