Maybe now Dino Rossi can afford some yard signs. Evergreen State Republican Senatorial hopeful Rossi this week announced that his campaign has raised $1.4 million in about a month to take on Senator Patty Murray. That's serious money for such a short period of time.

Even if a good chunk of these funds are low hanging fruit, it looks like Rossi wasn't joking when he told RCP he would be "competitive with Patty Murray" on the money front. Murray has nearly $7 million in funds, which recently earned her this raspberry of a story from the Seattle Times. The Times reporters revealed:

Among the top six Democrats in the Senate leadership, only Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has collected more money than Murray from lobbyists and their firms since 2005, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that tracks money and politics. Yet even Reid receives a smaller share of his overall donations from lobbyists than Murray does.

Rossi's campaign is by no means the only concern that will be spending money against Murray. Now that the Supreme Court has cleared away the legal basis to challenge most expenditures near an election, just about anybody can play.

Something called the American Action Network fired the first shot across the senator's bow this week with a four-day-long $750,000 media blitz called "Make Murray Worry." Judging by the Murray campaign's angry reaction to the ads, she is.

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