Governor race getting costly

Spending in Utah's 2004 governor's race already has topped $1 million. And the real campaign hasn't even started yet.

Beyond the documented spending, at least one candidate has spent cash out of his own pocket to get his name before the public — and those totals won't be seen in either political action committee or, later, campaign finance disclosures. Monday's filing deadline was only for PACs, and some of the seven or so GOP candidates don't have PACs, only personal campaign committees, which won't have a public filing until May.

Scott Matheson Jr., the unofficial Democratic gubernatorial candidate, does not have a PAC and so had no filing Monday.

In any case, the clear money-spending leader is Fred Lampropoulos, a millionaire medical company founder and owner who seeks the Republican nomination this year.

Lampropoulos' PAC, Progress Utah, has raised $930,000 and spent $765,000 through late 2002 and all of 2003, new PAC reports show. But those reports don't reflect around $325,000 in Lampropoulos' personal spending on radio ads, said Dave Hansen, Lampropoulos' campaign manager.

The rest of the GOP field trails far behind in spending, although Jon Huntsman Jr., heir to the chemical company fortune, could put millions of dollars of his own into the GOP gubernatorial contest between now and Election Day.

You may have heard Lampropoulos on the radio over the past year. He's spent around $25,000 a month over the past 13 months on "think pieces" on KSL radio and other stations across the state.

Lampropoulos identifies himself in the ads but doesn't say he is running for governor. He gives his opinions on a variety of subjects, from the Boy Scouts to Ronald Reagan, ending the spots saying, "This is Fred Lampropoulos, and I just thought you'd like to know . . . ."

Lampropoulos has been paying for those spots personally "as a private citizen," said Hansen. "Basically, we didn't run (the radio ad expenses) through the PAC at the request of KSL and other stations."

To pay for radio spots out of a political action committee would clearly make Lampropoulos' spots political advertising, Hansen said.

"And the stations didn't want to take two-minute political ads" months, even a year, before the actual campaign, Hansen said.