Re: Fred / "My Tepid Fund-Raising Would Bother Me, If I Were Actually a Candidate..."

[Contrary1]

But Hey, Testing the Waters is Cheap!

"Remember all that talk earlier this summer about Fred Thompson raising $5 million in a month? Well, yeah, that didn't happen. Everyone's favorite noncandidate presidential candidate released his first fund-raising numbers today, disclosing that he raised a little less than $3.5 million between June 4 and June 30. Friends of Fred Thompson, the former senator's "testing the waters" committee, listed about $626,000 in expenses, more than a quarter of that going toward Web and media consulting. The report, filed with the Internal Revenue Service (not the Federal Election Commission because Thompson is not officially in the race yet), says the noncampaign campaign spent about $70,000 on salaries, including a single $13,770 payout to Tom Collamore, who resigned as Thompson's campaign manager last week. The most interesting thing about the report: How not very interesting it is. The list of contributors disclosed by the campaign includes the occasional bold-face name, like former senator Howard Baker, Thompson's close friend and mentor, and Doug Feith, the former Bush administration official who helped plan the Iraq War. (Both men contributed the maximum $2,300.)..."

More: http://www.talk.newsweek.com/politics/default.asp?item=658536