For a man who isn’t running for office, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) sure raised a lot of money over the last three months — and sent a lot of mail.

According to his campaign’s first quarter filings, Paul raised $1.2 million in the first three months of 2014, despite not having another election until 2016. That’s almost three times as much as he raised in the first quarter of last year, and the second best fundraising quarter of his relatively young political career.

Paul does seem to have presidential ambitions, yet compared with others in that category, he’s still doing well. He raised about $1 million more than Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), another possible GOP contender. But then again, he also spent far more than Rubio. Where Rubio’s campaign spent $139,000 in the first quarter of the year, Paul’s spent $559,000. Rubio’s campaign committee has just a bit more cash on hand than Paul’s, $2.4 million to Paul’s $2.3 million.

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.

New York Times profile today detailed Paul’s attempts to court large-dollar donors, but Doug Stafford, the executive director of 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.

“Basically, it shows he’s expanding the universe of people who are interested,” Stafford said. Still,Stafford noted that in the last six months Paul’s campaign has brought in an increasing number of large donations, which he said is an accomplishment because large donations on the Republican side tend to come from more traditional, conservative donors.

An analysis of some of the largest checks received by the campaign in the first quarter show a number of donations at the $2,600 limit originating from Georgia and other large donations from northern California — not a coincidence, said Stafford.

“Those are places we’ve had events. We just had a $100,000 event in Atlanta, and that was definitely all donations of $500 and up,” Stafford said.

Northern California, in particular Silicon Valley, has been “very receptive” Stafford said, adding that there were two fundraising events in the area in recent months.

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While that may be true, the bulk of Paul’s money so far this year was from small-dollar donors — those who give $200 or less. Of the $1.2 million total raised, $851,000 of it came from those small donors. While many candidates would find that level of participation from small donors enviable, the campaign seems to be angling for its own team of deep-pocketed donors — the kind that Ron Paul lacked, and many of whom already seem to be signaling their interest in other potential candidates.

Paul’s campaign also saw comparatively little support from PACs — ideological or corporate –with other committees only accounting for $14,000 of his quarterly fundraising total. In the two-year cycle so far, Paul has raised just $94,000 from PACs, compared to $3.3 million from individuals.

Follow Russ on Twitter: @russchoma

Image: Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., greets Angelika Noel, 17, during a visit to Josephinum Academy in Chicago to participate in a discussion on school choice on Tuesday, April 22, 2014. At left is Doug Stafford. (AP Photo/Andrew A. Nelles)



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