Rand Paul Spent $264,475 on Postage in the First Quarter of 2014

 Russ Choma at OpenSecrets writes:

Paul appears to be in full campaign mode. His biggest expense over the last three months? Postage. He spent at least $264,475 on postage, which, depending on the postage rates, represents between 800,000 and one million postcards or mailers.

A New York Times profile today detailed Paul's attempts to court large-dollar donors, but Doug Stafford, the executive director of RAND PAC, said that the number of mailers showed the campaign was still making a concerted effort to reach small donors.

"The mail is both to people who have donated to him before, and looking for new people," Stafford said. "I think our motto on that is: 'By any means necessary.' Phones, mail, internet, we do it all aggressively."

"When you see that much postage, what you're seeing is that it works," he said. 

Mass mail is a hallmark of several key figures in the Paul campaign, including Stafford, who is former vice-president of anti-union group National Right To Work. At NRTW, he oversaw a massive mail campaign in 2010, previously detailed by OpenSecrets Blog. From January through March 2014, all of that money for postage was paid to a political consulting firm called Saber Communications. Based in Virginia, the firm is run by an operative named Mike Rothfeld, who is closely associated with Paul's previous campaigns, as well as those of his father, Ron Paul. During the 2012 presidential race alone, the elder Paul's campaign paid Rothfeld more than $7.6 million.