From the Cape Cod Times:

By C. RYAN BARBER
barber.c.ryan@gmail.com
June 28, 2010

Aiming to send a clear message of fiscal responsibility, Barnstable County Commissioner Sheila Lyons is challenging her primary opponent to cap campaign spending at $100,000.

“Voters need to know that their next senator is serious about watching every penny,” Lyons wrote in a letter to her opponent, as they both seek the Democratic nomination to fill the seat state Sen. Robert O’Leary, D-Barnstable, has held since 2000.

“I’ve been balancing budgets for a long, long time, so I think I understand budgets,” said Wolf, who said reaching out to non-Democrats is vital to his campaign.

“I don’t want to do something that will constrain my ability to have a good open dialogue with the constituency,” he said, in anticipation of the Nov. 2 general election.

Though Wolf ascribed no ulterior motive to his rival’s proposal, a source in Wolf’s campaign said the true intent of the challenge was “to institute some sort of class warfare and paint our candidate as the out-of-touch CEO.”

“It’s a divisive message. That’s how she wants to play it. We’re about being a positive campaign. We aren’t throwing mud at anyone’s face,” the campaign official said.

Lyons said the fact that Wolf has deeper pockets was not a driving factor in her proposing a voluntary campaign spending limit.

“I entered this race knowing that he was in a better financial position, and that he would have unlimited resources of his own,” she said.

Lyons said she proposed a spending cap to conserve funds for the seven-week window between the Sept. 14 primary and the Nov. 2 general election. Saving money for the general election will be especially vital this year, she said, because of the “optimistic mood in the air” for Republicans.

“I think there’s ways of reaching out to all voters without having to spend exorbitant amounts of money,” Lyons said. “I don’t want to spend more than $100,000 on the primary because we will be going into a formidable race on the other side.”

Furthermore, she said, reaching out to voters outside of the Democratic Party through a grass-roots campaign doesn’t require large sums of money.

State Sen. Rob O’Leary, who is campaigning for the open 10th Congressional District seat, said he only exceeded the $100,000 mark in his 2004 campaign against Republican challenger Gail Lese. But none of his other campaigns ever reached the $100,000 mark.

And that’s an example Lyons said she intends to follow.

“One of the worst things about campaigns is the amount of money they cost,” she said. “People spend their time raising money instead of doing the public’s work.”

While Wolf says he won’t agree to Lyons’ spending cap proposal, he said his campaign will perform as well as it can under the current campaign finance legislation, which limits donations to $500 per individual donor.

He also said his campaign is not accepting donations from corporations, including his own company.

“I think we need to run a really, really strong campaign between Sept. 14 and Nov. 2,” Wolf said. “And I also think we need to run a really, really strong campaign between now and Nov. 2.”