Bill Ritter's Quandray

If Bill Ritter had lost the election, his campaign would have ended up about a half million dollars in the hole.  Instead, he got the business community to ante up $250,000 right after the election to pay what he thought were his campaign debts.  That was during the post election honeymoon.

Now, we find that the Bill Ritter campaign was the victim of a campaign manager who was playing fast and loose with both the campaign laws and the budget.

It turns out that Ritter is about $200,000 thousand shorter than he thought.  The Rocky reports:

[ Bill ] Ritter said that he and his wife, first lady Jeannie Ritter, have put up the deed to their private Denver home to back a $200,000 loan to repay those campaign expenses out of the proper fund. The vendors are individually being asked, in turn, to refund the money Kolomitz paid them to the inaugural account.

Ritter said he will be raising money from supporters after the legislative session ends to pay back that loan.

This may turn out to be a bit harder than he thinks.  He will be raising money for the 2006 cycle and many of his friends will have already given.  It doesn't seem likely that he can give the campaign money and then ask those same supporters to give him more.

The business community is unlikely to ride to his rescue again given his proven hostility to business.  Perhaps he can get money from the ethanol, wind, and solar folks.  Care to bet that Daily Kos ends up holding a California fund raiser for him?