Paging Mr. Diggs Brown: You're Getting Screwed Back Home

14 Comments

by: Colorado Pols

We’ve said before in this space that Fort Collins City Councilman and Special Forces Soldier/Colorado National Guardsman Diggs Brown could be a very strong candidate in CD-4 under the right circumstances. A Republican with a cool-sounding military background and a base in the district’s largest population center could, in theory, be a tough guy to beat.

But unfortunately for ol’ Diggs, he seems to be getting screwed right and left while he’s away on National Guard duty. The infamous (and not in a good way) Ft. Collins GOP operative Andrew Boucher is running the Draft Diggs effort, and he’s quite literally spending more money than he’s raising.

The Draft Diggs effort has raised an impressive $52,710 in two quarters of work, which is a strong amount for a candidate who isn’t even in the country. But that’s only part of the story, because the campaign has also spent more than $43,000 already, leaving just $9,558 cash on hand.

You read that right — Boucher and his Draft Diggs friends have spent $43,000 on a campaign that doesn’t even have its candidate in the damn state. Boucher paid himself $7,500 last quarter, and two other people (Andy Nickel and Blaine Gallup) were on the payroll as staffers. What, exactly, are they staffing? Most campaigns don’t have anybody on staff this far out from Election Day, let alone three people, because the idea is to save as much money as possible for television.

And while there’s nothing wrong with taking a salary to do fundraising, how in good conscience could you be spending more money in Q2 ($28,484) than you raised ($23,470)? Boucher might say that they need to spend more money to keep Brown visible since he’s not in Colorado, but that’s horseshit — no average voter is paying attention to this race now anyway. Saving money for television ads is Campaigning 101 for races like this. There’s no excuse. None.

We know one thing: Of all the candidates in Colorado running in 2010, Diggs Brown is the last one we’d want to screw with. We wouldn’t be pissing away money for a guy who could kill us with his pinkie.

14 thoughts on “Paging Mr. Diggs Brown: You’re Getting Screwed Back Home”

twas brillig says:

July 15, 2009 at 11:44 pm

I wonder how that’s going. (It’s related to improper fundraising during his poorly-conceived city council campaign this past spring.)

It’s too bad for Diggs he can’t be “boots on the ground” in CD-4. Looking through Cory Gardner’s donors, only a handful are from Greeley, and even fewer are from Loveland or Fort Collins. There’s a lot of low-hanging GOP fruit out there.

If he does come back, all will be wondering whether he keeps Boucher on board, or puts together a kick-ass consulting team that knows how to win a very conservative, base-driven primary.

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SSG_Dan says:

July 16, 2009 at 12:03 am

Yeah, it’s bad now – but when he comes back from The Suck, he has the cred and the real war stories to hit all the right notes with the Conservative Base.

“I know what works in the War on Terror, because I’ve fought it! All rep Markey can do is spend….”

Let’s wait and see what happens…

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1. redstateblues says:
  
  July 16, 2009 at 12:07 am
  
  are the Draft Diggs campaign.
  
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2. twas brillig says:
  
  July 16, 2009 at 12:37 am
  
  See: http://coloradopols.com/diary/…
  
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streetthug says:

July 16, 2009 at 1:28 am

In the 4th CD on the Dem side Rep. Markey in the first quarter alone spent $33,047.79 on campaign staff.

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1. Colorado Pols says:
  
  July 16, 2009 at 1:48 am
  
  Every incumbent in Congress has a full-time campaign person. When you are an incumbent with a half-million in the bank, you can do that.
  
  When you are a challenger facing a bruising primary, you can’t.
  
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  1. RedGreen says:
    
    July 16, 2009 at 1:51 am
    
    Even more so when you’re a campaign without a committed candidate yet!
    
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2. Middle of the Road says:
  
  July 16, 2009 at 1:53 am
  
  Always nice to see fresh (or recycled) faces around the joint.
  
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Kirk says:

July 16, 2009 at 1:56 am

Boucher is the Don King of GOP operatives. He promotes himself more than his candidates, he sucks them dry then leaves them for dead once he’s done with them.

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onebigrepublican says:

July 16, 2009 at 2:51 am

Rep. Gardner raised $200,000 in the 1st quarter???

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1. RedGreen says:
  
  July 16, 2009 at 2:55 am
  
  Gardner raised $200K in the 2nd quarter, as he was forbidden from raising anything while the Legislature was in session. But no one’s claiming the Draft Brown fundraising is in any way impressive.
  
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2. Colorado Pols says:
  
  July 16, 2009 at 3:29 am
  
  $50,000 is impressive considering that the candidate isn’t even here and can’t make calls himself. Whatever they raise for Diggs Brown is apples and oranges compared to anyone else, because there is no call time from the man himself.
  
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  1. guesswho says:
    
    July 16, 2009 at 7:31 am
    
    Andrew has done a great job of keeping the “missing man” in the the news with some money to spare. Not bad.
    
    Let’s look at the Kenney as the best at screwing up a race…that would be Ritter.
    
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Born with red blood says:

July 18, 2009 at 4:47 am

How can anyone deny that this is awesome? The guy isn’t even in the country, and he has raised $50,000 all from Fort Collins, Loveland and Greeley donors. Cory is a nice guy and would make a great rep, but he doesn’t have it to beat Markey right now….way too polished….too young….uncanny resemblance to Clay Aiken. Andrew Boucer might be slick, but I assume he is the one raising this money for Brown, right (correct me if I’m wrong)? I think that is pretty impressive. Do you expect people to work for free for a guy who isn’t even here? Who raises all that money? Please.

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