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Tuesday, September 23, 2008

$86,188 Raised by Gov. for Debt

By Barry Massey
Associated Press
          SANTA FE — Gov. Bill Richardson raised $86,188 last month to help retire his presidential campaign debt.
        Richardson's campaign owed $245,713 at the end of August, which is down about 11 percent from the previous month, according to his latest campaign finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission.
        Richardson dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in early January.
        Richardson's campaign received $67,201 in contributions last month and collected $18,987 by renting its fundraising list of supporters to a commercial vendor.
        About 30 percent of the contributions to Richardson came from people from Oklahoma.
        Richardson's campaign spent $68,801 last month. That included $11,658 for payroll, $9,649 for cell phones, $6,598 for legal services from a Washington, D.C., firm and $4,971 for Internet advertising.
        Richardson has raised a total of $24 million for his presidential campaign, which started in January 2007.
        The largest amount of the campaign's debt is for the use of private aircraft owned by the governor's political supporters in New Mexico: $26,362 owed to the Branch law firm in Albuquerque and $203,850 owed to Lea King LLC, which was organized by Hobbs businessmen Johnny Cope and Harry Teague.
        Teague, a former Lea County Commissioner, is the Democratic nominee in the 2nd Congressional District in southern New Mexico. Cope is a longtime political fundraiser for Richardson and serves on the state Highway Commission.
       

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