July 23, 2009 02:28 AM UTC

Gessler Raises Little in Q2, But Spends Plenty

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• by: Colorado Pols

Lost in the latest round of campaign finance reports (and no doubt he wishes it would stay lost) was the news that Republican Scott Gessler raised a measly $12,800 in his bid for Secretary of State.

Gessler did manage to spend $21,569 (including a whopping $16,000 on various “consultants”), leaving him with just $6,336 cash on hand. Gessler is apparently hot on the trail of CD-4 Republicans Tom Lucero and Diggs Brown in the race to see who can bankrupt their campaigns first.

With Republicans waging expensive primaries for both State Treasurer and Governor, there’s not going to be a lot of cash left on the table for candidates like Gessler. Unless he’s got a lot of personal money to put into his campaign, Gessler looks unlikely to mount a real challenge to incumbent Democrat Bernie Buescher — and he may have spent his way into a GOP primary as well. Certainly no Republican thinking of running for SOS will be scared off by Gessler’s meager fundraising.