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Governor's race 2010: No fundraising reports may mean low contributions
Candidates stretch finance deadline as they stump for funds
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Like everything else, the economy may have hampered fundraising efforts for gubernatorial hopefuls.

The deadline for filing contribution reports was Tuesday for the state’s gubernatorial candidates. But on Wednesday, no one had filed such a report. No one was surprised, either.

Once filed, the reports will shed light on how much support each candidate has roused since hitting the campaign trail.

And candidates for statewide offices, who have a seven-day grace period for reporting their campaign contributions without penalty, likely will wait until the last minute to make that information public, said Rick Thompson, executive director of the State Ethics Commission.

"It’s always a race to see who can file the latest," Thompson said.

Candidates who have raised large amounts of money will sometimes file early to flaunt what they have, said state political columnist Tom Crawford of Capital Impact.

"Certainly, you want to be able to brag that you’ve got more money than the folks running against you," Crawford said.

And with no reports filed on Wednesday, another political columnist, Matt Towery of Insider Advantage, said it could mean candidates do not have much to flaunt.

"The fact that no one has filed immediately tells me that no one’s overly proud of what they’ve raised," Towery said.

However, representatives for the state’s gubernatorial candidates say the reason they have not filed their contribution reports is because they are busy processing the donations that came in at the last minute.

"We’re still depositing checks and processing credit cards," said David Poythress, a former adjutant general.

Poythress, a Macon native, is one of four Democratic contenders in the governor’s race, and he, like most campaign representatives, said he is pleased with the support people have thrown his way.

A spokesman for U.S Rep. Nathan Deal’s campaign said Deal will not file disclosure forms until next week, but the campaign was "tremendously pleased" with its contributions so far.

The campaign stayed mum on its contributions, but Deal’s director of communications, Harris Blackwood, said Hall County supporters "launched" the congressman’s bid for governor.

"Hall County and the 9th District loves its congressman and they want him to be governor," Blackwood said.

Like his Republican competitors, Poythress would not "allude to numbers, but we’re very happy about what we’re going to report," he said.

But Poythress and other candidates said the recession has their donors writing smaller checks or supporting them in installments.

"Everybody who gave in the past is not as eager to give quite as much," Poythress said. "Somebody who gave $1,000 last time may give $500 this time ..."

House Minority Leader Dubose Porter, a Democrat from Dublin, said his supporters are giving small amounts of money now and pledging to give more later.

Although Porter had not filed his financial disclosure report Wednesday, he said he has exceeded his fundraising goal of $200,000.

"The initial number may not look as good as people want, but if you reach a threshold, you can run an aggressive campaign," Porter said. "We know we can do that now, and we know what will additionally come in and then you go out and try to touch as many people as you can."

With the hopes of pooling a few more resources in spite of the economy, Porter and other candidates are trying to tap into new donors through social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Porter said his 24-year-old son set up a Twitter account for his gubernatorial campaign.

Though he laughs when he says the name of the networking site, Porter uses Twitter as a fundraising tool and to keep his supporters informed about the campaign.

"We just want to engage everybody in the journey," Porter said.

Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, a Republican candidate for governor, also is using social networking sites.

Oxendine’s campaign manager, Tim Echols, calls it a "21st century campaign." Echols said the campaign is using those sites and e-mail to collect donations.

"The greatest things about those is it’s an instant response," Echols said.

Secretary of State Karen Handel made it a goal that she would have 100,000 online donors by Tuesday. A spokesman for Handel, Dan McLagan, said Handel campaign achieved that goal. Handel also used Twitter to gather support.

"Help us post a big number," the Republican candidate for governor posted on her Twitter page as the reporting deadline neared Tuesday. Although Handel will not be filing her report until next week, using the sites helped Handel garner support from a "huge number of small donors," McLagan said.

"We’re trying to use the new technology to try to get to folks who are not traditional donors," McLagan said.

But the candidates, including the Oxendine camp, also are raising money the old-fashioned way. They have friends hold fundraisers at their homes, or they simply call people on the phone and ask for a donation.

"This is really the mother milk of politics ...," Echols said. "There is no substitute to the candidate calling people and for other individuals calling people. People like to be asked to be involved."

"That kind of personal touch is still important in the day of Facebook, Twitter and e-mail," he continued. "It’s still important to reach out."

Whatever their reports show next week, money is not an entirely accurate gauge of the support a candidate has statewide, Crawford said.

Former Secretary of State Cathy Cox’s disclosure report showed she had raised more than $5 million in her campaign for governor by June 30, 2006, but Cox still lost the Democratic nomination. When he beat incumbent Roy Barnes in 2002, Gov. Sonny Perdue had not raised nearly as much money as his Democratic counterpart.

And today, Barnes, who just announced his intent to run for governor on June 3, still has not set up his fundraising organization for this campaign. Still, political pundits behold Barnes as the Democratic front-runner in the race.

"... It’s really meaningless in the long run," Crawford said of contributions. "It’s a way for one candidate to score some points on the other candidate."