Bling! Congressional candidates boast about fundraising

Quarterly campaign-finance reports are rolling in today for Congressional candidates.

CD-4 Democratic challenger Betsy Markey announced her relatively promising numbers on Square State:

[S]he has raised a total of $595,000 for the 2008 cycle - including more than $226,000 in the first three months of 2008 alone. Markey had over $376,000 cash on hand at the end of March.

To put the numbers in perspective, Markey has over $140,000 more cash on hand than any other past Democratic challenger for the seat at this point in the cycle. Of the 22 Democratic challengers who beat Republican incumbents in 2006, Betsy Markey's cash on hand is better than 60% of them.

Incumbent Republican Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave has not yet made her fundraising numbers available, but as of the end of 2007, she had over $752,000 on hand. Her campaign recently announced it would finish the first quarter of 2008 with over $1 million saved up (I have to link to the Coloradoan for this release; amazingly, Musgrave's congressional and campaign offices still refuse to send the Chronicle any announcements. A little help, J. Thielman?)

Democratic Senate candidate Mark Udall posted very strong numbers through a release on his campaign site. Udall raised $1.45 million from over eight thousand different contributors. He has $4.2 million in cash on hand.

His opponent, Republican Bob Schaffer, shared his numbers also via a press release, through which his crafty campaign manager is playing a very predictable card in a not-at-all subtle way:

The U.S. Senate campaign of Bob Schaffer announced today it brought in more than $1 million in the first quarter of 2008. This marked the best fundraising quarter yet for the Schaffer campaign as they recorded $2.16 million in cash-on-hand.

“We are well on our way to bringing in the resources necessary to beat Boulder Liberal Mark Udall and his out-of-state liberal elitist donors this fall,” said Campaign Manager Dick Wadhams.

The Schaffer campaign spent only $366,400 while Boulder Liberal Udall spent $831,000 during the first quarter.

"Boulder Liberal Udall is bleeding money, spending at the twice the rate of the Schaffer campaign," said Wadhams.

Someone should tell Wadhams that labeling Udall isn't like summoning Beetlejuice, and I imagine that Udall will stick with "Mark" from Eldorado Springs.

Colorado Pols is keeping a running tab on congressional fundraising reports as they come in for candidates across the state.