What would I tell you if I said that the unbeatable Governor Angus King had raised only an anemic $1305.00 in the entire year of 1997 in the lead up to his re-election campaign?

Would it then interest you to note that in the January 2002 pre-election semiannual (i.e. just the second half of 2001), then Congressman John Baldacci raked in a staggering $329,258.97 for his budding race for Governor, which frightened potential primary challenger Chellie Pingree so much, she folded like a cheap suit?

Does it peak your curiosity that in the eight way primary fight in 1994, the eventual Republican nominee – Susan Collins – only raised $119,308.13 all the way up to the 6 day pre-primary report filing?

There is no way I could break down the fundraising numbers of the current crop of gubernatorial candidates any better than Mike Tipping did for Down East a couple Fridays ago.  His breakdown masterfully deconstructed the totals, where it all came from, the burn rates, and everything else you would want to know about how each respective candidate did was as comprehensive and insightful as anyone could want.

So, I decided to take it a step further, and examine the recent history of gubernatorial fundraising numbers to see just what money means in Maine.

My thanks go out to Gavin O’Brien at the Ethics Commission for taking the time to find, scan and send me all the major candidates’ financial disclosures going back to 1990 – something that was essential for this project, as the online disclosures only go back to 2002.

As both parties are now embroiled in intense primary fights between 5 or more serious candidates each, I think the most instructive race to look at is the 1994 Republican gubernatorial primary.

1994 also featured a wide Democratic field, but Joe Brennan as a former two term governor was able to handily win the primary with little real worry.  The Republican field on the other hand featured a fractured set of candidates with no real clear advantage – something that I think both parties are seeing right now.

Let’s take a look at the top five vote getters in that primary, who spent what, and what they got out of it (numbers are from the start of their respective campaigns, though the 42 day post primary finance report):

Note:  The Collins number in the above chart is not completely fair, as she was the eventual nominee and continued to raise and spend money after the primary was over.  While the bulk of what she spent was undoubtedly the final push in the week before the election, some of it was not.  However, I wasn’t going to have the Ethics commission copy the dozens upon dozens of pages of segmented out information so I could nail down the exact figure she raised and spent for the primary vs. for the general – so for the purposes of this exercise, we’ll just assume it was all primary money.  Practical reality, however, would dictate you take several thousand off Collins’ “spent” total in your mind.

Back on track now.

As you can see from the chart above, money by no means bought a candidate love from the voters.  The conversion of dollars per vote obtained shows us that the biggest spender (by far) – Sumner Lipman – paid close to twenty dollars for every vote he received, and finished only a single percentage point ahead of somebody he outspent by more than $210,000.  Jasper Wyman knew how to turn dollars into votes, only dropping a Lincoln for every person voting for him.

Collins, the eventual winner spent a good amount of money, but with my above noted caveat was likely only the second, or maybe even third highest spender in the primary.  In other words, she hardly won because she dumped the largest amount of cash in the election – but she did have enough to mount a credible push.

By comparison the two who spent the least, Wyman and Paul Young, had the highest conversion of dollars to votes.

Want a few more fun facts?

• Sumner Lipman gave his campaign $120,000 in loans.  In terms of personal investment into the race, he was the Bruce Poliquin or Les Otten of his day.
• In the period of July 1, 1993 to December 31st, 1993 (which is analogous to the most recent fundraising period we saw here), Susan Collins raised $35,219.84, Lipman raised $29,529.04, Wyman raised $31,480 .00, Judith Foss didn’t raise anything, and Paul Young raised $7,662.00.  That means that all of the top five vote getters in that primary raised $103,890.88 all together, or less than Bruce Poliquin raised by himself in this cycle.
• If you want to adjust them for inflation, that would put those numbers at $53,598.94, $44,938.45, $47,907.50 and $11,660.33 respectively.  Just to note, in this period Poliquin raised $125,939.85, Otten raised $74,819.45, Jacobson raised $43,798.00 and LePage raised $41,115.00, all of which are respectable, “in the game” totals when compared to 1994.

So, what is different today?

A few things.

2010 features two candidates who are prepared to dump unheard of amounts of money into the race.  Maine has not seen a primary election quite like this in its history.  Certainly there have been knock down drag out primaries, and certainly there have been big spenders, but two men willing to potentially spend a million dollars each in a primary?  No.

The more Collins/Lipman/Wyman type fundraising totals would be operable in a more traditional year with a fractured primary that did not have a plethora of money being spent, however on top of Otten and Poliquin spending what they will spend, Peter Mills will have 400,000 dollars of taxpayer funds (edit:  as well as matching funds, which will give him more than $600,000 to spend), and Steve Abbott will likely be able to leverage his national contacts to raise several hundred thousand dollars as well – which means that not having those kind of resources in this election may make it difficult for a candidate to cut through the noise.

But don’t sell any of the candidates with fewer resources short, either – remember the performance of Jasper Wyman on a shoe string.  With such an orgy of spending going on as multiple candidates attempt to elbow each other out of the picture and position themselves as the lead dog, they all risk a very real possibility that they will turn off voters, annoy them, and drive them to what voters will perceive as the more genuine, less obnoxious options.

Never forget that Mitt Romney outspent Mike Huckabee 20 to 1 in Iowa, but turned off a lot of voters in the process and drove them to what was perceived as the more “genuine” Huckabee who was a natural ideological fit for the Iowa voter.

Which is all to say this: no one is out of the race, so long as they can raise enough money to operate an efficient and competent campaign.  With so much uncertainty, so many fractured constituencies, and the potential for so much over-saturation in the media, money will be only one of the factors in who ends up being the eventual winner.

Stay tuned in the future, I’ll be playing with some of these numbers more, including other races from other years as well as a look at the general election campaigns, complete with an analysis of spending in each election going back to 1990.

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