Brown raises $200K for congressional race

The winner of the Republican congressional primary in June will face Democrat Charles Brown, a retired United States Air Force lieutenant colonel and political newcomer who never stopped campaigning after closing in on John Doolittle in the 2006 election.

Brown raised nearly $200,000 during the fourth quarter of 2007, his campaign announced Wednesday. That brings his total fundraising for the year “to nearly $700,000, with $483,000 left in cash on hand,” campaign manager Todd Stenhouse said.

The money comes from 10,000 donors, Stenhouse added.

Brown’s campaign “has been a grass-roots campaign from the beginning, (and it) is being fueled by local people, not by politicians,” Stenhouse said.

That support “far exceeds any of his GOP rivals at this point in the campaign,” Stenhouse added. The campaign report will be filed Friday, he said.

Brown won 45 percent of the vote districtwide in the November 2006 election, pulling Doolittle’s victory to just under 50 percent of the vote. But Brown carried Nevada County by a wide margin, with nearly 55 percent of the vote to Doolittle’s 40 percent.