Wednesday, April 04, 2007

McGoff Raises $100K

The congressional campaign of Dr. John McGoff will report raising close to $100,000 during the first reporting period since he announced he would challenge U.S. Rep. Dan Burton in the 2008 primary for the 8th congressional district according to Star political columnist Matt Tully. That's a stellar start for any congressional campaign's first three months. It's particularly significant because those funds were raised without any organized fundraising events. The candidate's campaign manager, Trevor Foughty, says McGoff will have 6-8 fundraising events during the next quarter.

McGoff's report is not yet available at the Federal Election Commission's online campaign finance database. It will be interesting to see who is financing his campaign at this early date. I suspect pharmaceutical companies and medical providers will be kicking a lot of money into the physician's campaign. According to Tully, Burton already has $700,000 in the bank and expects to raise $250,000 during the next 10 weeks. A competitive race in this district could prove to be very expensive because Indianapolis is an expensive media market to purchase television advertising. McGoff's worst fear at this point as a member of the Indiana National Guard is receiving notice he is being called up for active duty in Iraq or Afghanistan just as his campaign kicks into gear. It's not an unfounded fear.

7 comments:

Wilson46201 said...

The national GOP has already targeted Hill, Ellsworth and Donnelly for '08 -- I wonder if this possibly-expensive GOP primary will suck up cash from those races ...

Gary R. Welsh said...

Probably not, Wilson. Most of the money in those races last year was raised from out-of-state by the party's national committees.

Obob said...

I wish Burton would lose, but I don't see the voters have that much courage in this district

Jacob Perry said...

You suspect pharmaceutical companies are funding him? Nice cheap shot, Gary.

Do you really understimate Burton's unpopularity? Do you think his lack of primary challengers in the past was because he's so beloved in his district? Could it be that he's legendary for cutting off potential opponents at the knees? His ruthlesness is legendary (and made his referencing Clinton as a scumbag ironic).

Gary, your underhanded smear of McGoff would be like if you ran for office, and I stated that your contributions came from the rainbow brigade.

Anonymous said...

scribe-

I don't think Gary meant that comment as a smear against McGoff at all, and as an out of district observer, I certainly didn't take it that way.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Scribe, Based upon Burton's record and McGoff's profession, it would only be natural for those groups to contribute to his campaign. Trial lawyers are among John Edwards biggest source of contributions. Edwards is a trial lawyer. I'm not smearing him by saying he gets a lot of contributions from trial lawyers. If you read the post, I'm actually complimenting McGoff's campaign for the substantial funds it raised in a very short period of time.

Wilson46201 said...

" Gary, your underhanded smear of McGoff would be like if you ran for office, and I stated that your contributions came from the rainbow brigade. "

in pesos ?