D.C. mayoral candidate Michael A. Brown has some financial loose ends to tie up from his political exploratory committee, says one of his veteran campaign organizers. Joe Ruffin , former political director for Brown's committee, said Brown owes him $23,000.
Brown, son of the late Ronald H. Brown, a former U.S. commerce secretary, said Ruffin is wrong. "The exploratory committee has no debt at all," Brown said. "Joe Ruffin doesn't know what he's talking about."
Ruffin said he was paid a total of $15,000 for work he did over eight months. "I charge from $8,000 to $15,000 a month," Ruffin said. "People have paid me that."
Brown has said that his exploratory committee raised $151,345, including $76,400 after March 1. But in e-mails shared with The Washington Post, Ruffin and Andre Johnson , Brown's media consultant, complained last month that Brown owed them money.
Johnson confirmed that over the weekend Brown paid him the $2,000 he was owed for work performed for the exploratory committee. Johnson, a high school classmate of Brown's, said he has resigned from Brown's mayoral campaign.
Ruffin's loyalty does not go back that far. He said he has worked on campaigns for 17 years both locally and in Bermuda, New York, California, Oregon and New Jersey. In all, Ruffin said, he's run about 24 national races, three international races and three local campaigns.
"I'm a guy who if I work, I want to get paid," Ruffin said. "I don't expect to be treated like a boy in a man's game."
When Brown kicked off his mayoral campaign in September, Craig Kirby , Kemry Hughes and Ruffin, some of the first advisers to sign on with the campaign, did not attend the announcement.
Kirby, a Brown confidant, said he's frequently asked about the candidate's campaign coffers. "As I've gone about the city, I've been asked if the campaign is on solid footing. I don't know," Kirby said.
But Kirby said Ruffin mentioned to him before the campaign kickoff that Brown wasn't paying him.
Cropp Corrals Support
It looks like mayoral candidate Linda W. Cropp is sick of comparisons that paint one of her opponents, Adrian M. Fenty , as the bold voice of youth and her, Cropp, as representing the dying gasp of the old fogies.
