Ron Paul reports raising more than $8 million in third quarter

Rep. Ron Paul raised more than $8 million for his presidential campaign in the last three months, the Texas congressman announced Wednesday.

Paul touted the grass-roots nature of his haul, noting that more than 100,000 individual donors contributed to his campaign. By comparison, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he raised more than $17 million from 22,000 donors.

“If you get $8 million, half as much, and you get it from small individual donors who are fervently engaged in campaigning for you, that’s a lot different than getting money that more than likely might have come, for the other candidates, from special interests,” Paul said at a luncheon at the National Press Club. “All donors are not equal. I will take my small donations, with the enthusiasm of the people who send me the money.”

So far, Paul is the only presidential candidate to report raising more in the summer quarter than in the spring. Paul’s second-quarter haul was $4.5 million. (Mitt Romney is expected to report raising considerably less than he brought in last spring. President Obama’s numbers are also expected to be much lower.)

Paul said his campaign faced an “uphill battle,” and complained that he had not received the level of media attention that has been paid to others in the GOP presidential field.

“Does anybody know who won the straw vote in California?” Paul asked, referring to a September straw poll in Los Angeles where he took 45% of the vote. “It was a nonevent.”

Still, he said, “I think that if we’re worth our salt and we can raise the money and we can communicate, I would say, you know, for the most part, I really get a pretty fair shake.

Presidential candidates must file reports to the Federal Election Commission detailing where they received their money and how they spent it. Those reports are due Oct. 15.

kim.geiger@latimes.com