Jindal Way Ahead in Fund Raising

Section: Business

Bill Barrow of Times Picayune

BATON ROUGE -- Regardless of whether he captures the governor's office without a runoff, Republican Bobby Jindal continues to bolster his place as the most prolific fund-raiser in Louisiana politics, according to the latest campaign finance disclosures.

Jindal took in $1 million during the last three weeks of September, pushing his total for the campaign to almost exactly $11 million. The Kenner congressman has also opened the spending floodgates, reporting $2.8 million in outlays, a clip of more than $140,000 per day as he blankets the state with television and radio advertising. That saturation does not include more than $200,000 worth of direct mail and other advertising the state Republican Party is financing on Jindal's behalf.

Even after that spending, the congressman had almost $4.3 million left on Sept. 30, a staggering sum that is nearly impossible to spend before the Oct. 20 primary, particularly considering the amount of television and radio advertising that has already been bought by the scores of candidates for offices across the state.

Not even the two multimillionaires who have been spending pieces of their personal fortunes on the race can match Jindal's bottom lines in their efforts to block the front-runner from an outright primary victory to claim a job he lost four years ago in a runoff to Democrat Kathleen Blanco.

Candidates hoping to succeed Blanco, who announced in March that she would not seek a second term, filed reports covering campaign finance activity from Sept. 11 through Sept. 30, and some candidates have filed addenda recording certain fundraising and spending since Oct. 1.

Trio of reports

State Sen. Walter Boasso, D-Arabi, reported $1.49 million worth of personal loans to his campaign, covering his $1.46 million in spending and dwarfing the $98,000 in contributions he received. Boasso had $144,000 left to spend on Sept. 30.

Independent John Georges, a New Orleans-area businessman making his first run for public office, reported a net infusion of $500,000 from personal accounts for the period, while spending $1.6 million. He collected $102,000 worth of contributions and had $734,000 left in his campaign kitty at the end of the period.

The fourth major candidate, Democratic Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell, is Jindal's closest competitor in terms of attracting contributions, having collected $167,000. But Campbell, while able to tap some personal accounts from his success as a farmer and insurance agency owner, has not matched Boasso and Georges in personal campaign spending. Campbell reported repaying some earlier loans he had made to his campaign.

After spending $487,000 in the last three weeks of September, Campbell was left with $409,000, a total he immediately started draining this week by making more television buys in the New Orleans market, the first significant investment the Bossier Parish resident has made to bolster his name identification in southeast Louisiana.

The reports do nothing to dispute the familiar theme of the race, which has from the start been framed as Jindal's to lose, as Boasso, Campbell and Georges aim simply to force a Nov. 17 runoff, with the second-place finisher hoping to change the dynamic in a shortened runoff campaign.

Expensive election

The latest spending reports underscore the ever-increasing cost of statewide elections that play out mostly on 30-second television advertising and in stealth direct mail campaigns.

Jindal and Georges have now each eclipsed the $5 million that Blanco spent to claim the Governor's Mansion in 2003, with Boasso almost sure to pass that mark by the time voters cast ballots. At $7.4 million in total spending, Jindal has eclipsed what he spent in 2003, as well.

Boasso has now chipped in $4.69 million of his own money and spent $4.97 million.

Georges appears to have pumped at least $7 million of his own money into the race, though an exact figure is difficult to measure because of a barrage of recent transactions between his personal and campaign accounts. He has spent more than $5.5 million.

Campbell, an unabashed populist who has said from the beginning that he would not be able to win the money race, has hauled in $1.3 million and spent $1.11 million. He has loaned himself a net amount of $335,000. Campbell said earlier this year that he thought it would take $3 million "to be competitive in the primary."

Earlier this month, he still expressed confidence that he would make a runoff. "This is an election, not an auction," he said. But he also has acknowledged the difficulty he faces in matching his face time in front of voters in a political arena so dominated by expensive 30-second television commercials.

Perhaps more striking than Jindal's bottom line is the sheer number of donors who have anted up to his campaign kitty. With the latest report, Jindal's contributor list numbers more than 19,000, with almost 18,000 of them from Louisiana. Jindal's closest competitor for the most donors is Campbell, who has had fewer than 1,000. All four candidates directed the overwhelming majority of their spending to television and radio advertising, but it was their other expenditures that offer a window into some of their various strategies nearing election day.

Where money goes

Georges has been seeking paths to the African-American vote in the New Orleans area by appearing at functions with mostly minority audiences and working with black religious and political leaders. Among his growing list of African-American consultants are Silas Lee, a pollster at Xavier University; and ECS LLC, a firm run by Eddie Lee Shepherd, the brother of state Sen. Derrick Shepherd, D-Marrero, who is actively campaigning for Georges. ECS has received $27,000 from the Georges campaign for grass-roots coordination and sign installation.

Campbell, meanwhile, reported a long list of paid "canvassers," many of them with New Orleans addresses. It is a time-honored strategy among Louisiana Democrats to hire voters to recruit others to the polls.

Republican turnout efforts more often center on direct mail and automated telephone calls, as confirmed by Jindal reporting in-kind spending by the state GOP on his behalf.

Noticeably absent on the reports are large infusions from arms of the Democratic Governors Association and the Republican Governors Association, confirming the conventional wisdom that both parties view Jindal as a strong favorite and at the least would wait until a runoff before investing heavily in the race.