The Liberty Papers

An interesting article came through the aggregator today. It seems Ron Paul is having even more fundraising success that we realized, in his campaign for re-election to Congress:

FRIENDSWOOD — U.S. Rep. Ron Paul raised more than six times the money for his re-election campaign this quarter than his primary challenger, Friendswood city councilman Chris Peden.

The four-term congressman for District 14 also ended the quarter with nearly $80,000 in the bank, compared with Peden’s diminutive balance, reported at less than $400.

Peden said he’s gone against the advice of consultants who told him to put his own savings in the account to make his campaign seem more serious.

“If my message isn’t credible, I don’t think it matters what my finances say,” he said. “I’ve been doing a lot of work getting that message out.”

Peden reported receiving $8,654 in contributions between June 30 and Sept. 30, $3,617 of which were personal loans. Paul’s campaign reported raising $53,030.40 in that time.

(…)

Paul’s congressional re-election spokesman, Mark Elam, said fundraising efforts were focused on the presidential races right now.

This really shouldn’t be a surprise, of course. Paul is obviously playing it safe here; if he doesn’t get the GOP nomination, he still has a Congressional seat to think about and, based on this report, it would seem that he is interested in returning to Congress if the Presidential campaign doesn’t work out.

And, if that happens, he’d be returning with a lot more national name recognition than he had before.

In other news from Texas, it seems an old “friend” of The Liberty Papers isn’t running for Paul’s seat after all:

Former Paul aide Eric Dondero, who previously said he would challenge Paul in the primary, endorsed Peden. League City resident Andy Mann also announced plans to run in the primary, but did not file a report.

Too bad, that might’ve actually been a fun primary to watch.