Well, the filing deadline has come and gone for campaign finance reports in Vermont. It’s a big day; thanks to the state’s antiquated campaign finance reporting rules, candidates haven’t had to file since one full year ago. (From this point on, they have to report once a month through the rest of the year.)

So, lots of numbers. Earlier, I reported the headline: Randy Brock reported a better-than-expected total of $527,000 — but only because he loaned his own campaign $300,000. In actual contributions, it’s a disappointing total. And that, plus the fact that he reported expenditures of nearly 300K on his campaign — far, far more than any other candidate — puts him in a deep financial hole in his race against Governor Shumlin.

Now, on to some other tidbits.

In the only high-profile primary race on the Democratic side, incumbent Bill Sorrell had a decent report, but challenger TJ Donovan outraised him by a significant margin. Sorrell raised $83,000 in cash — including a $2,000 loan to his own campaign — and reported in-kind contributions of over $9,000. He has spent nearly $38,000 already*, which leaves him with about $46,000 cash on hand.

*Most of Sorrell’s expenditures have gone to payroll; he has four paid campaign staffers who are drawing regular paychecks.

Donovan raised a total of $128,000 (no loans), with expenditures of just under 40K, leaving him with $88,000 cash on hand — nearly double Sorrell’s total. And bear in mind that we’re only about six weeks away from the primary, so Sorrell has very little time to close the money gap.

It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for Vermont Republicans. Aside from Randy Brock, noted above, their three candidates for US Congress reported pitiable fundraising totals while the incumbents, Dem Peter Welch and Indy Bernie Sanders, reported huge numbers.

After the jump: Beth Pearce, Vince Illuzzi, Doug Hoffer, and the Lt. Gov race.

Jack McMullen, the no-hoper Republican candidate for Attorney General, reported goose eggs across the board. Well, he loaned his campaign a few thousand bucks to cover expenses incurred so far, but he has received not a single dollar in contributions. Haunted by the ghost of Fred Tuttle.

Treasurer hopeful Wendy Wilton, as reported earlier, raised very little money: a total of less than $16K, with about 11K still on hand. She’s in a very deep financial hole against (appointed) incumbent Beth Pearce, who reported total fundraising of $76,000 for the reporting period, and total money raised at $84,000. Pearce has spent 33K, but she still has a roughly five-to-one advantage in cash on hand. That’s not good for Wilton, who was supposed to be one of the VTGOP’s bright hopes for 2012.

There’s one race where the Republican has a clear financial edge, and one that’s fairly close in dollars.

The former is the race for Auditor. Vince Illuzzi has substantially more money than Doug Hoffer — but for two reasons unrelated to his fundraising prowess. Illuzzi reported total donations of $31,641. But $17,600 of that was in transfers from “Vince Illuzzi for State Senate.” His campaign actually raised less than $12,000. (To be fair, Illuzzi has a big fundraiser coming up, as has been reported here previously.) He also reported a personal loan to his own campaign of $25,000 — which apparently was not reported under “Contributions.” On Brock’s report, his personal loan of $300,000 was listed under “Contributions.” Could it possibly be that our Auditor wannabe made a substantial mistake on his campaign finance form?

(Comedy side note: On the front page, the filer has to sign and print his name. Illuzzi signed his name, and in the space for the printed name, he printed “CANDIDATE.” Hope he does a better job filling out forms if he becomes Auditor.)

Illuzzi has spent a little over $4,000 so far — with the biggest line item being mileage reimbursements to himself, for driving to campaign events from his home in Newport.

Doug Hoffer reported contributions of just over $10,000, with total expenditures of $3,650. So, with Illuzzi dipping deeply into his own wallet and his other campaign warchest, Hoffer is at a distinct financial disadvantage. If you’re considering a tactically sound contribution, he’s not a bad choice.

In the race for Lt. Governor, incumbent Phil Scott didn’t raise a whole lot, but he still did a lot better than Dem challenger Cass Gekas. Scott raised about $27K in cash and has only spent about $4K. There were some technical problems with Gekas’ report so I only got the topline: she raised $7,785. So she’s off to a slow start.

If these first financial returns are any indication, most of the Republican candidates are already in deep trouble. And the only two who are doing well are the two “mavericks” — Vince Illuzzi, who is aggressively positioning himself as a person who has worked with both parties, and Phil Scott, who (almost always) tries to position himself somewhere near the middle of the political spectrum.   What does that say for the VTGOP’s 2012 strategery of moving aggressively to the right?

And what will it mean for the future direction of the VTGOP if their only statewide officeholders are Republican nonconformists?

I’m sure I didn’t catch all the big news from today’s filings. Watch VTDigger and Paul Heintz at Seven Days, as well as the Freeploid and Vermont Press Bureau if not blocked by their paywalls.

If anyone has any corrections to my diary, or questions I didn’t cover, please write them in the Comments and I’ll be happy to amend my post.