July 13, 2005 08:00 AM UTC

Rutt Bridges Files $131,000

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• by: Colorado Pols

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rutt Bridges issued a press release today, indicating that he raised $131,754 in the second quarter and making the filing available on his website.

Bridges and his campaign manager had this to say in a press release:

Weve earned a broad base of support traveling across Colorado the last few weeks,” stated Bridges. “People are responding to my experience creating jobs and building coalitions to find common-sense solutions for all of Colorado.”

First of all, we applaud Bridges for making everything so easily available on his website, and we’d encourage other candidates to do the same. Now, on to the filing itself…

$131k is a respectable number for one month worth of fundraising, but if Bridges comes in under Democrat Bill Ritter, as we discussed earlier, then Ritter has scored a nice early victory. True, Ritter had more time to raise money than Bridges, but if he can report more money raised it will be a big boost to his campaign – a campaign that is flailing in the perception that Ritter is going nowhere and is rarely heard campaigning.

We haven’t had a chance to scroll through Bridges’ list of donors yet, because that will tell more about his support than the overall number. Bridges is independently wealthy and doesn’t need to be a prodigious fundraiser in the same way that Ritter needs it, so who donated to Bridges is more important than how much he raised.

The other thing that stands out from the press release is that Bridges is going more towards the “creating jobs” message that better fits his background than just talking about “schools, health care, and jobs” that is such a standard line that nobody listens to it.