When the Colorado Independent reported that GOP Fourth District candidate Tom Lucero faced a tough slog in his race against Democrat Betsy Markey, we had no idea. Like all the other candidates around the nation, Lucero filed his Q2 fundraising report last week. His, though, looks like the kind of sad scrawled midterm exam that gets slid under the professor’s door at 5 a.m.
Lucero hasn’t raised much cash. His main GOP opponent, state Rep. Cory Gardner, raised more than $200,000 in seven weeks. Lucero has been campaigning since December and looks to have collected about $28,300, all of it from individual donors, which seems safe to say suggests that he’s lacking institutional support. Also, Lucero is campaigning on a “fiscal discipline” platform, of course, like everyone else is doing. He spoke at three tea parties on Tax Day. But he is running a not very fiscally disciplined campaign. He took in $14,851 this quarter and spent $15,799. He’s got $3,642.81 left on hand.
“We have to replicate Obama’s Chicago-style politics, Saul Alinsky’s ‘Rules for Radicals,’ if we’re going to beat the [Democrats],” Lucero told a small clatch of Loveland supporters at the beginning of June, referring to Obama’s days as a small-scale community organizer.
If Lucero’s Q2 Federal Election Form is any indication, looks like that’s the plan he’s been following, for better and for worse.
Hat tip Colorado Pols.
