Recently, Bruce Lisman’s Campaign for Vermont filed a lobbyist-expenditure report  showing that it had spent over $200,000 in the first quarter of this year*. All of that money, according to Lisman himself, came from his own deep pockets. As we said at the time, that’s a lot of money. But in today’s world of mega-million-dollar politics, it may seem like a pittance. So how much is it really?

*For 2011, CFV reported zero expenditures. This is a bit of a puzzle, since its ad campaign has been running since late November. Not sure how to explain that; perhaps CFV simply waited until January 1 to start paying its bills.

The answer is rather astounding. CFV is on pace to outdo Karl Rove’s notorious Super PACs this year. Obviously, CFV is small potatoes compared to the Rove machine; but through the power of his bankbook, Bruce Lisman is making himself a really big fish in the very small pond that is Vermont. The numbers:  

There are about 220 million registered voters in the US. This week, Rove’s organization announced that it has nearly topped the $100 million mark, and is aiming to raise a total of $240 million. That’s a little more than a dollar per registered voter.

There are roughly 440,000 registered voters in Vermont. In the first quarter CFV spent $212,000, almost all of it on advertising. Since March 31, CFV’s ad campaign has continued apace. At this rate, CFV will spend proportionately as much money by midsummer as Rove’s machine will spend all year. And if CFV simply maintains its first-quarter pace throughout the campaign, its total spending would be around $700,000. That’s about $1.60 per voter.

But since CFV’s goal is to inject its ideas into the 2012 campaign, its spending is likely to increase as the election draws near. How much? It’s hard to tell. But let’s compare it to the Shumlin and Dubie gubernatorial campaigns of two years ago.  

In the first half of 2010, Shumlin spent about $200,000. Dubie, $455,000. The two campaigns had very different spending patterns; Shumlin started slow, spent a bunch in midsummer leading up to the Democratic primary, laid low for a few weeks afterward, and then went all-in from mid-September through Election Day. Dubie spent fairly consistently, at a higher rate than Shumlin, from January to mid-September; he then picked up his spending through Election Day, but was outspent by Shumlin down the stretch.

More detail than you really need. The main point is that CFV is matching Dubie’s pace, and is significantly ahead of Shumlin’s. For the entire race, Dubie spent $1.5 million, while Shumlin spent $1.43 million.

I’m not claiming that CFV will go that high. Even if CFV intensifies its radio buys and gets into TV, it still wouldn’t incur many of the normal expenses of a traditional campaign  — staffing, organization, yard signs, travel, GOTV, etc. But even if you assume that CFV will only spend half as much as Dubie from here on, then its total budget could easily top a million bucks. Or about $2.25 per registered voter — more than double Karl Rove’s spending rate.

Maybe it won’t happen. After all, CFV has registered itself with the state as a lobbying organization. And with the Legislature about to adjourn for 2012, one might expect lobbying expenses to decline sharply. But CFV says it is engaged in both “direct and indirect lobbying,” and virtually all of its activity so far has been advertising aimed at the general public. It’s been virtually invisible around the Statehouse. I think it’s safe to assume that the lion’s share of its work will continue to be in the decidedly “indirect” category, and thus will be unaffected by adjournment.

(This “indirect lobbying” is kinda like if you wanted to water your garden, but instead of using a sprinkler you hired a fleet of Tanker 910s to drop planeloads of water all over Vermont and called it “indirect” watering. This would appear to be CFV’s approach to “indirect” lobbying.)

If this turns out to be true, Campaign for Vermont will be the most expensive independent advocacy effort in Vermont history. And Bruce Lisman will spend more than enough to have one of the loudest voices in our political dialogue.