It must be nice to have so much money that you can afford to crank out thousand-dollar checks by the bushel and hardly notice it.

Safe to say the Barons of Burlington are in this category, because they continue to broaden their roster of Republican state Senate candidates, each new one seemingly less likely than the last. The newest tchotchke in their collection: Larry Hart, Sr. — or alternatively Larry Wayne Hart — this year’s challenger to Orange County’s nearly perpetual incumbent Democrat Mark MacDonald.

Mr. Hart has previously featured in this space as a mystery candidate who had failed to submit any campaign finance reports. At first I took this to mean that he wasn’t doing anything and hadn’t even bothered to submit a No Activity Report. I heard later that he’d boasted of having $30,000 in the bank. Well, now we know, and the truth is just about exactly in the midpoint of those two speculations. And the bulk of his money came from, you guessed it, the Barons of Burlington. Some of ’em, anyway.

Mr. Hart, identified on his campaign website as “Larry Hart, Sr.” and on his campaign finance filings as “Larry Wayne Hart,” finally complied with state law by submitting his September 1 and October 1 reports on, ahem, October 8. Along with a mass media report filed on October 11 that we’ll get to in a moment.

First, I need to note that MacDonald himself outdid Hart in belated filings. On October 13, he filed his campaign finance reports for August 1, September 1, and October 1. Oopsie. The filings show MacDonald has raised $6,410 and spent… uh… zero. MacDonald has made a habit of low-stress campaigns lately, counting on his familiarity with Orange County voters and/or Vermonters’ almost total reluctance to toss out an incumbent state senator. I think we can conclude that MacDonald doesn’t feel threatened by the Barons’ latest acquisition.

Speaking of whom. As of October 1, Hart had raised a total of $17,145. All but $750 of that arrived on a single day, September 15. The remaining $750 apparently predated the 9/1 reporting period, which covered the month of August. Hart has yet to report the source of that money.

Otherwise, all but $250 came from the Barons of Burlington and friends. Hart received precisely one donation from within his own district, $250 from Lincoln AgriSource LLC of Randolph Center. He received ZERO donations of less than $250. Real man of the people, he is.

Here’s the list of $1,000 donors: Remo Pizzagalli, Judy & James Pizzagalli, Pizzagalli Properties, Bissonette Properties, Douglas Nedde (real estate), Hauke Building Supply, and the Plunkett family (Paul Plunkett, head of Hickok & Boardman Insurance).

For some reason, most of Hart’s donors gave precisely $960.60 apiece. I’m guessing they gave through an online donation aggregator such as WinRed that took a piece of the action. It’s a new phenomenon for the Barons. I do hope they’re not running short of cash. That’d be a real shame.

Anyway, the not-quote-four-figure club includes Bruce Lisman, Jon Pizzagalli, Brian Boardman (real estate), Tom Shepard (probably a misspelling of home builder Tom Sheppard), Jerry Tarrant, and George Martin (probably of LN Consulting, a design firm). Coming in at a mere $500 was Brian Cairns (property management).

There were two $960.60 donors from outside Chittenden County: Gardner Orton of the Vermont Country Store family and Stephanie Austin of the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association.

Mr. Hart has perhaps been overwhelmed by this sudden largesse, because he’s made some, in my view, questionable campaign expenditures. Namely, he’s sent almost all his money to Washington, D.C.-based Battleground Strategies*, which is often employed by Gov. Phil Scott’s campaign. He paid Battleground a total of $14,095 for brochures, which strikes me as an extraordinary amount for the purpose. Is he planning to literally blanket the entire district in brochures?

*Friend of the Blog Kevin Ellis reminds me that Battleground Strategies is headed by Jim Barnett, who made his bones running negative campaigns for Jim Douglas back in the day. Barnett’s last star turn in Vermont was helming Scott Milne’s relentlessly negative campaign for lieutenant governor in 2020. Spoiler alert: Milne lost to Molly Gray by 7.2 percentage points.

His mass media filing from October 11 reports more money shipped to D.C. He paid Battleground $3,181 for postcards and $1,500 for online advertising. His only non-Battleground expenditure so far was $585 for yard signs from Spectrum Marketing, the New Hampshire-based firm that’s been employed by dozens of Republican candidates for the Legislature.

That’s right, this son of the soil has yet to spend a goddamn dime inside Vermont.

I can tell you one thing he didn’t outsource: his campaign website, which is riddled with typos and bad grammar. For instance:

When one party has too much power and that power is abused, it is time to vote in new legislates who represent everyday Vermonters and someone who will restore fiscal responsibility, public safety, and housing growth.

Yeah, what we need is “new legislates.” Less dire but indicative of a lax editorial process:

We must bring things back to the middle as is an old and trusted Vermont way of doing things.

Well, I get your drift, anyway. Here’s another.

When a Governor veto spending and then is overridden by a super majority, it says two very important things.

I think that’s enough. I don’t want to put too much emphasis on these kinds of mistakes, although they’re uncharacteristic of a campaign with a five-figure budget. They shouldn’t disqualify Hart from voters’ consideration, anyway. They are signs of a hastily-put-together campaign that looks like it got a sudden windfall after hardly existing at all before September 15.

Thanks to the Barons for that. Will it be enough to unseat the anti-spendthrift MacDonald? I sincerely doubt it.