April 16, 2012 08:54 PM UTC

Democrats Slam Joe Coors' Fat Checks To Self

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

As we strongly suspected last week amid the rush of “Joe Coors outraises Ed Perlmutter” stories, it appears the “momentum” for Coors from his Q1 numbers is going to be short lived. Colorado Democrats released this statement a few minutes ago, after Coors’ detailed campaign finance disclosure report became available from the Federal Election Commission:

Just hours prior to the final deadline to report the source of his campaign cash, Joe Coors finally filed his FEC report which showed he gave and spent more of his own money on the campaign than he raised from individual donors.  Coors gave his campaign more than $218,000, while only raising a little more than $213,000.

In just three months, Joe Coors spent and paid more than $218,000 of his own money for campaign expenses, including more than $12,000 for redecorating his campaign office, nearly $100,000 for consultants (including nearly $40,000 just for two different research firms), and nearly $300 to rent golf carts for various campaign soirees.

Last week, Joe Coors announced he “raised” nearly $450,000 and that showed his campaign’s “broad-based” support.

“If Joe Coors’ “outpouring of support” and “broad-based support” continues to be based on his very own contributions, he is going to run into every self-funder’s problem: having fewer donors equals fewer votes,” said Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Rick Palacio.

It looks to us like Joe “Not a Beer” Coors’ campaign deliberately pushed the bogus story of him “outraising” Ed Perlmutter for the few days detailed FEC reports weren’t yet available, knowing more people would see the initial story than the news later that the first was not actually, you know, complete.

One hopes reporters will hesitate before giving him the benefit of the doubt next time.