Union chiropractor John "Kelly" King is running his quixotic Fourth Congressional District GOP primary campaign on the admirable platform of not taking piles of money from special interests.

"Kentucky is NOT for sale!" in bright red letters, jumps out from the cover page of his campaign Web site (www.voteking.org).

But the candidate who eschews campaign money - or can't adequately raise it - will forever be the long shot in our system of politics.

Against the backdrop of King's low-budget bid is the thirst for money in the camps of his competitors, lawyer Kevin Murphy and business consultant Geoff Davis.

Murphy has built some good momentum in his race, becoming adept at "earned" media. Basically, he's getting his name in the news through press conferences, press releases and appearances.

Murphy seems to be showing up everywhere except the one place candidates need to be in the final days of a campaign - on TV with campaign ads.

What must be even more frustrating to Murphy is that Davis has handed him perfect fodder for attack ads.

Davis, one of his contributors and some political action committees (PACs) are accused of breaking campaign finance laws.

Davis and others involved vehemently deny the claims. Issues like this are made for effective advertising. But Murphy is low on cash and may not be on TV the last weekend before Tuesday's vote.

Davis was so eager to pull in cash he and his supporters got sloppy. They took in money from PACs the same day the PACs received money from a contributor. Campaigns aren't allowed to funnel money through PACS, and I'm not suggesting for a minute that's what Davis did. But it looks bad.

In response, the Davis campaign lashed out at some of Murphy's contributors, the Griffin family of Northern Kentucky.

The Griffins run an animal reclamation business. Two of their employees have been indicted for allegedly breaking federal environmental laws in Georgia. Both workers contributed money to Murphy.

Davis' campaign called on Murphy to give back the money, a challenge he refused. But then Davis went off on the Griffins.

Bad move. Not only are the Griffins big political contributors to GOP candidates, they have lots of wealthy friends who are more than a little peeved at Davis' attacks.

If he wins the primary, Davis will need all the money he can get to defeat Democrat Nick Clooney in the fall. Angering donors is the wrong move.

Maybe King has a point. If you're not raising much money, you don't have as many problems. But you also don't have much of a chance of winning.

E-mail pcrowley@enquirer.com. Crowley interviews Congressional candidate Geoff Davis this week on ICN6's "On the Record," which is broadcast daily on Insight Communications Channel 6.