Fossella in Financial Trouble and Denial

Consider these unfortunate situations for Rep. Fossella, at the same point, (August to September) the year before each of his previous elections;

* He has never been in more debt than he is now
* He has never had less cash on hand than he has now
* Only once has he had a worse third quarter of fund raising than he did this year

Yesterday marked the end of the fourth quarter (Oct-Dec) of fund raising for Fossella and is going to be quite telling. Several stories have come out highlighting his abysmal fund raising. Then there is the denial;

This time around, Fossella’s pockets are not yet full. As of Sept. 30, the five-term incumbent had just $50,000 on hand for his presumed re-election campaign, while Harrison had already raised $37,000. Fossella’s lack of funds is due, in part, to the $209,000 in debt he accrued in 2006.

Fossella’s campaign spokeswoman, Georgea Kaye, dismissed any concerns about Fossella’s finances.

“The committee raises between $1.2 and $1.8 million every election cycle and we are on track to reach our goals this cycle as well,” said Kaye.

Fossella's lack of funds is partially due to his debt, caused by a hard race against Harrison in 2006. This accounts for his horrendous cash on hand as he pays off debts. This time during the last campaign he had nearly 11 times the amount of cash on hand. But that is not the whole story. Fossella is failing to raise the same amounts of money he has done in the past. At this point in the last campaign he had amassed nearly twice the amount of total contributions than he has done so far.

3Q 2007
Net Q: 98,735 [second lowest]
Net: 383,160
CoH: 50,286 [lowest ever]
Debt: 73,582 [highest ever]

3Q 2005
Net Q: 360,563
Net: 715,390
CoH: 538,805
Debt: 31,478

3Q 2003
Net Q: 55,900
Net: 173,151
CoH: 154,937
Debt: 1,486

3-4Q 2001 *
Net Q: 101,998
Net: 234,275
CoH: 308,739
Debt: 0

3-4Q 1999 *
Net Q: 237,047
Net: 344,309
CoH: 202,283
Debt: 5,523

* Up to 2001 Rep. Fossella was only required to submit financial reports for six month increments from July-Dec. Since 2001 he has to split that into a 3rd Quarter (July-September) and 4th Quarter (October-December) report.

Later this week we should have the FEC reports for the fourth quarter (October to December 2007) for Rep. Fossella as well as Stephen Harrison and Domenic Recchia. Unless he is able to get closer to $200k in contributions for this quarter he is likely to not be able to finish off his debt and potentially could be behind one if not two of his Democratic challengers. If this happens his campaign is officially in free fall. Bring on those 4Q numbers!