Gubernatorial donors pinched by recession

The candidate for governor looks at the list of people to call that morning and ask for campaign contributions.

Hmmm. Well, Mary just got laid off. Scratch Mary.

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I hear John’s house is in foreclosure. So much for John.

Oh, Mark. Let’s try him. No, Mark just had to close one of his restaurants. Can’t call Mark.

What is a candidate starving for campaign cash to do? Especially with a midnight Tuesday deadline looming to report how much money he or she has raised? And, make no mistake, while the 2010 primaries are more than a year away, the finance reports candidates issue in the next few weeks will be pored over and used to prove momentum and legitimacy.

Much is at stake and the economy stinks. It’s having an effect, candidates and their aides said.

“A business person who traditionally might max out to a candidate or candidates, they have to decide: Do I give the maximum contribution to a campaign while I’m laying people off?” said Jeff Breedlove, a campaign strategist to Republican gubernatorial hopeful John Oxendine, the sitting state insurance commissioner and a front-runner for the GOP nomination in 2010. “Appropriately, many small-business owners across Georgia are making the choice to change political giving habits to focus on their businesses and employees.”

State Sen. Eric Johnson (R-Savannah), another gubernatorial challenger, said the economy has made things more difficult, but people give if they have a reason.

“There are still people that are willing to invest in a friend or invest in what they believe to be a good potential political leader,” Johnson said. “It’s humbling when anybody writes you a check in this atmosphere.”

Some potential donors, however, “say, ‘OK,’ and some say I’m hurting, give me some time,” Johnson said.

It’s not just Republicans facing the heat of the recession, either.

“It’s hard. We have nearly double-digit unemployment in Georgia,” said Wendy Davis, the campaign manager for Democratic gubernatorial hopeful David Poythress, the former state adjutant general. “Fund-raising is the side of politics that few people love, but folks know you have to have the money to conduct a campaign.”

Tough times or not, that deadline is coming. At this point in a campaign — more than a year from an actual vote, the hot, humid days of summer when voters are focused on other things — there are few benchmarks for candidates to crow about. Sure, there is some polling being done, but those surveys at this point are little more than name identification.

That makes this reporting period, the only one of 2009 — the next reports won’t be filed until January — appear much more important than it might actually be. A candidate who comes in with a huge influx of cash can tout it as proof that his or her campaign is the one with momentum, the one that can be counted on to be there in the end. A candidate comes in too low and … well, it’s going to be a longer and hotter summer. If that seems like an unfair barometer of a candidate’s strength, well, politics has never been for the weak of heart.

“We set a certain goal, and we’re going to make that goal, and a matter of fact, be beyond that goal,” said House Minority Leader DuBose Porter (D-Dublin), who wants his party’s nomination for governor next year. “It’s gone really well for us.”

Porter, the only candidate willing to say how much he has raised, said he has met his goal of $200,000. While some candidates have said it will take $10 million to $15 million to win, Porter’s sum is still a nice haul, considering he didn’t start until after the legislative session ended in April. (Candidates are barred from raising money while lawmakers are meeting in Atlanta.)

Davis, with Poythress’ campaign, said her man’s campaign has gotten a boost by another competitor joining the race.

“People see us as the alternative to Roy Barnes,” Davis said of the former governor who announced he would join the Democratic fray in July. “Our numbers have exploded since he got in the race. People don’t want to see a rerun of the same bad movie they saw in 2002: Barnes getting beaten by a Republican.”

Barnes lost his bid for re-election in 2002 to Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue, who is barred from seeking a third term.

Barnes is actually spared from this week’s deadline because although he announced he would seek a return to the Governor’s Mansion, he will not formally enter the race until July and cannot accept contributions until then.

With the tight economy, many candidates are using every available tool to reach voters and potential donors. E-mail blasts warn of the coming fund-raising deadline. Facebook pages call for contributions. Twitter feeds provide links to Web sites for donations.

But even with those efforts, some candidates admit they will not be in the top tier of the financial standings. State Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton) never expected to be.

“We were never under the impression we were going to be able to raise as much money as [fellow Republican gubernatorial candidates] John Oxendine, Nathan Deal, Karen Handel or Eric Johnson,” Scott said.

All have superior name identification and built-in bases. Deal is a veteran congressman from North Georgia. Handel is the sitting secretary of state.

Scott wants to turn his lack of fund-raising prowess into a positive, or at least a negative for his opponents. “We knew we wouldn’t be able to buy it. We’d have to earn,” he said.

Scott is putting most of his focus into a 1,000-mile walk throughout the state that was to begin Saturday in Chickamauga and end in about 10 weeks at the Capitol in Atlanta.

The walk, he said, “is about getting out and showing Georgians who the workhorse is and who the person who actually cares about the average Georgia citizen is.”

Scott has to hope that shoe leather will trump cash.

“This is what it takes,” he said. “This is what it takes for us to win.”