St. Petersburg mayoral candidate Brandi Gabbard is either a hypocrite or she realized far too late that she needs to get serious about raising cash.

Up until recently, Gabbard was not raising funds through her affiliated political committee, Forward Together PC. That changed on July 17, when campaign finance records show she accepted a $10,000 contribution from the Florida Leaders Council, a committee that has only raised about $18,000 since its inception nearly three years ago.

Gabbard previously told Florida Politics she wasn’t raising funds through her committee, and was instead focusing on her campaign account. As recently as this week, she took to social media to lament big money in politics.

“I would never be supported by the institutional donors and gatekeepers who believe they dictate who gets the privilege of holding elected office. I was okay with that, because I believe in our people to see through all the political pandering and nonsense that big money can help flood our mailboxes and airwaves with,” Gabbard wrote Wednesday on her campaign Facebook page.

On its face, the $10,000 contribution smacks of hypocrisy. But drilling deeper, it may smell more like desperation.

As of July 17 — the most recent date for which campaign reports are available — Gabbard’s campaign account had raised just $47,000. She had less than $14,000 left on hand at that time. With the $10,000 contribution and previous contributions to the committee, Gabbard had less than $15,000 available in her committee as of July 24.

That’s less than $30,000 to spend in a Mayor’s race where the incumbent has hit six figures and his top challenger has raised well into seven figures.

To be clear, this is not a critique of political committees, nor is it a critique of Gabbard accepting a large donation from a convoluted source (more on that in a second). Rather, this is a reminder of what happens when you bring someone up from the minors too soon.

When Gabbard entered the race, she did so with the sort of idealistic, utopian idea of politicking that doesn’t exist at this level. Good for her. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live in a world where politics were decided by the grassroots, where mountains of cash weren’t so often the determining factor in who rises and who falls?

I’m not here to litigate whether money in politics is good or bad; that’s its own conversation and worthy of its own space. It has also been litigated to at least some degree in every election cycle since Citizens United.

What I am here to share is political reality. Running for St. Petersburg Mayor is not a five-figure task. Mayoral races in St. Pete have been at, or just narrowly missing, the million-dollar mark for well over a decade. There’s no reason for this to have taken Gabbard by surprise.

So to some extent, it’s good to see her catching up to reality and cashing a big check.

But here’s the thing — two things, actually. One, it’s too little, too late. Two, her comments lamenting money in politics came AFTER she had already cashed that big check. And, sidebar, there was also a $2,500 donation on July 7 from Backstreets Capital, a local developer.

And that’s where hypocrisy surpasses political realism.

Let’s evaluate what she wrote just one day ago.

“I would never be supported by institutional donors and gatekeepers.”

You wouldn’t? Um, I think you are.

The $10,000 came directly from a political committee, but such committees — as anyone who works in or adjacent to politics knows — are often used as pass-throughs for donors who might not want their fingerprints directly on the contribution. In this case, the funds appear to have come from Shumaker.

The $10,000 donation from the Florida Leaders Council to Gabbard’s committee came on July 17, according to records. On July 16, records also show the Florida Leaders Council accepted a $10,500 donation from Shumaker. On July 17, Florida Leaders Council donated $10,000 to Making Democracy Work. The same day, Making Democracy Work shipped that same amount back to Florida Leaders Council.

I’m not making the case for the anti-money in politics crowd, but the money trail strongly suggests the funds originated with Shumaker. And good for Shumaker for helping to fund democracy!

The bottom line: Gabbard’s acceptance of the funds could certainly be described as accepting support from “institutional donors and gatekeepers.”

So while it’s great to see Gabbard accepting the realities of campaign finance, it’s also disappointing to see that realization cause a bout of blatant hypocrisy.

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Ed. note: Michelle Todd Schorsch is the Chair of St. Pete Shines, a political committee backing Crist for St. Petersburg Mayor. Todd Schorsch is married to Peter Schorsch, the publisher of Florida Politics.