{"id":1974,"date":"2007-07-13T14:22:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-13T20:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/07\/kissling-raises-10k-says-money-gap-doesnt-matter\/"},"modified":"2007-07-13T14:22:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-13T20:22:00","slug":"kissling-raises-10k-says-money-gap-doesnt-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/07\/kissling-raises-10k-says-money-gap-doesnt-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Kissling raises $10K, says money gap doesn’t matter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Congressional candidate Al Kissling\u2019s<\/a> second-quarter finance report indicates that his expenditures from April to June exceeded his contributions by more than $67,000, but Kissling says the report is incorrect and he has about $8,000 in cash on hand. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The report<\/a> indicates that Kissling raised $10,445 during the quarter, spent $79,686.13 and had a negative cash balance at the end of the period of $67,437.43. Expenditures listed included a payment to the New Mexico Department of Labor of, according to the report, $73,098 \u2013 the likely source of the error.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not anywhere near correct,\u201d Kissling said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In fact, he said, he has $8,000 in the bank today, and raised a little more than $10,000 during the second quarter.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

There are a couple of other problems with his report. It lists an expense of $3,110.26 as a \u201ccredit card bill\u201d payment. Expenses paid for with credit cards are supposed to be listed separately, with a memo indicating they were paid with a credit card. That\u2019s so that cards can\u2019t be used to hide expenses.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In addition, Kissling raised some money through the site Act Blue<\/a> during the reporting period, but that\u2019s not reflected in the report. Either the Kissling campaign forgot to report the money or didn\u2019t include a memo indicating it came through the third-party Web site.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The Democrat referred other questions about the report to his finance director, Rhonda Brown, who I was unable to reach.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Contributions listed on the report include $7,945 from other individuals and $2,500 from Kissling.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Also notable is the $35,000 debt to himself that Kissling\u2019s campaign carries from his unsuccessful 2006 bid to unseat U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce<\/a>, R-N.M. Kissling held a fundraiser in December to help repay that money, but apparently didn\u2019t use the cash he collected to pay down the debt.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Kissling\u2019s report for the first quarter of 2007 indicated that that debt was down to $8,200, but he filed an amended first-quarter report late Thursday along with his second-quarter report. The debt on both reports is now reflected at $35,000 \u2013 the original amount he loaned the campaign.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Kissling said the debt is \u201cnot an issue,\u201d saying he\u2019ll manage to get by even if he is never able to repay it to himself.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Kissling, who received just over 40 percent of the vote against Pearce last year, is way behind Pearce and the other Democrat in the race, Do\u00f1a Ana County Commissioner Bill McCamley<\/a>, in fundraising. Pearce raised $245,000 during the second quarter, spent just over $60,000 and ended the quarter with $383,000 on hand. McCamley raised just under $140,000, spent a little more than $6,000 and had more than $133,000 on hand.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Kissling said the fundraising gap doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons I\u2019m running is because I\u2019m nauseated by the political scene this season, where campaigns are validated by the money they raise,\u201d he said. \u201cFrankly that\u2019s what\u2019s wrong with Congress, and I\u2019m running to make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Kissling said he won\u2019t be owned by special interests or corporations.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

He said he\u2019s working on his campaign, and is traveling to Albuquerque<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> today to meet with some advisers. He said he has a strong team in place, and plans to become very active beginning in October.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Kissling is working on getting the Hispanic vote. He recently spent two weeks in Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> learning Spanish, and plans to spend another two weeks there in September.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m feeling very good,\u201d Kissling said. \u201cI\u2019m planning to campaign as a person who is knowledgeable about the issues, and not just one who makes sweeping, general statements.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congressional candidate Al Kissling\u2019s second-quarter finance report indicates that his expenditures from April to June exceeded his contributions by more than $67,000, but Kissling says the report is incorrect and he has about $8,000 in cash on hand. The report indicates that Kissling raised $10,445 during the quarter, spent $79,686.13 and had a negative cash […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}