As you may remember, at the end of the first quarter I was extremely impressed to see Charlie Brown have a $200,00+ warchest advantage over embattled Congressman John Doolittle. That just isn’t how it is supposed to work, the goal of the challenger is just to try and limit the financial advantage of the incumbent and raise enough to compete.
But there is nothing normal about this race…
The second quarter of an off-year in the two-year congressional campaign cycle generally shows increasing income, as Brown’s did — jumping from about $89,000 in the first three months to $193,000 in April, May and June.
But for Doolittle, the trend was the other direction. His campaign took in $128,000 in the first quarter and barely topped $100,000 in the second.
Earlier in the story, Whitney explained where things stand:
Rep. John Doolittle’s cachet with big Washington, D.C., campaign financiers seems to have plummeted in the aftermath of the FBI’s April 13 raid on his Oakton, Va., house, and the eight-term Roseville Republican heads toward the 2008 election season with his campaign still in debt and receipts on the decline.
Meanwhile, the campaign of Democrat Charlie Brown, who came within 3 points of defeating Doolittle in November, is gaining steam. Brown’s campaign raised almost twice as much as Doolittle’s in the last three months and ended the six-month mark with a net cash balance of $251,000. Doolittle posted $32,250 in debts.
Doolittle’s biggest expense during the three-month period was $50,000 in fundraising payments to Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions, a company owned by his wife and operated out of the couple’s house. It was the company’s records that the FBI was after in the April raid, conducted as part of the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into the Doolittles’ relationship with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Even with the hefty campaign payments to Julie Doolittle’s company, Sierra Dominion still was owed more than $76,000 in commissions from the 2006 race.
Thanks to the unethical arrangement where the Doolittle family pockets a percentage of the fundraising, Charlie Brown has now widened his fundraising advantage.
And how often, this far out, do you hear of a challenger beating an incumbent in PAC contributions? Time to run and hide…
Doolittle’s receipts from the big-bucks political action committees, most of which are in Washington, fell from $27,925 in the first quarter to $14,850 in the second — $4,000 less than Brown took in.
Doolittle’s campaign spokesman, Gordon Hinkle, referred calls Sunday night to political consultant Richard Temple, whose office was closed. Doolittle chief of staff Ron Rogers did not return a call.
These financial reports are going to further dry up DC money for Doolittle who is on track to lose electorally in 2008 if he isn’t jailed before then. Let’s keep up the momentum and see stories like this at the end of the third quarter — help out Charlie Brown.