If fundraising prowess is any indication of who is best positioned to run for Rhode Island governor in 2010, state Treasurer Frank Caprio and Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline have strong early leads.

With more than $500,000 in their respective war chests, the two Democrats are financially far ahead of any of the other potential candidates for governor, Republican or Democrat. In Caprio’s case, that reflects an unrivaled first-quarter fundraising effort that netted him more than $200,000, according to recent filings with the state Board of Elections.

But the latest round of fundraising reports does not tell the whole story, in part because one of the best known — and wealthiest — of Rhode Island’s out-of-office politicians has dangled the possibility of running for governor but has not yet raised or spent a dime: former U.S. Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee.

Swept out of office two years ago in one of the critical upsets that allowed Democrats to regain control of the Senate, Chafee says he still has the “luxury of time” to decide whether he wants to jump back into the political arena.

But as he goes from one stop to another on his book-selling tour, Republican-turned-independent Chafee talks about what he calls the “magnet pull” to jump back in. “Even in the supermarket, I’ll be looking at a head of lettuce and someone will say … I am sorry I voted against you for the Senate. They feel compelled to tell me: ‘Don’t take it personally … I hope you run for governor.’ ”

And so as the jockeying begins around him, Chafee says: “This has been a chance to think things over … and have some weekends free, but nonetheless I do enjoy political life.” Of running for state treasurer or Providence mayor instead, he says: “It’s an option.”Currently a teaching fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies and the author of a book — Against the Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President — Chafee promises a decision on his political intentions by the end of the year.

An independent Chafee candidacy raises the possibility of a rematch –– on the state playing field –– between Chafee and his 2006 GOP primary challenger, former Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey. And the ironies of political history may not end there.

Robert Weygand, the former Democratic congressman who lost to Chafee in 2000 for the U.S. Senate, acknowledges that he, too, is thinking about running for governor in 2010 because the “state is in terrible shape,” current leaders lack “vision,” and the Democratic Party “has become a party of special interests and special groups, and I’m just an old-school Democrat who believes that it should be a party of the people.” Weygand is currently the University of Rhode Island’s vice president of administration.

So as the list of potential candidates grows, it becomes increasingly evident that ’08 is none too early for someone without substantial personal wealth to start fundraising for an election more than 2½ years off –– especially any Democrats hoping to break out of the pack and win an office their party has not held in 14 years.

In 2002, a political unknown named Donald Carcieri spent $2.3 million winning the governor’s office, most of it his own money. His much-better-known Democratic opponent, Myrth York, spent $4.1 million on her third failed try. Carcieri spent $2.8 million to get reelected in 2006, while his Democratic challenger, then-Lt. Gov. Charles J. Fogarty — who is considering another run for governor in 2010 — spent $2.4 million.

With Carcieri barely a year and a half into his second –– and last –– four-year term, the phrase “weighing my options” has become a mantra on Smith Hill and beyond. Here’s a look at the lineup: On the Republican side, Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian flirted with the idea of running for state office, with Chafee, on an independent slate, but said early last week that he was most interested in running for Rhode Island’s 2nd Representative District seat should James R. Langevin, the Democratic incumbent, opt out. Langevin spokeswoman Joy Fox says the congressman has no plans to leave.

But Avedisian, who is up for reelection as mayor in November, said: “I don’t see myself running for governor at this point…. My first choice is to still wait for a chance to run for Congress.” Lest there be any doubt where his party loyalties lie, he is also burnishing his Republican credentials by running for a seat on the Republican National Committee.

As of March 31, Avedisian had a modest $88,505 in his campaign fund, after raising $17,150 and spending $10,781 during the last quarter.

In the meantime, former Mayor Laffey has stepped up his fundraising.

Laffey, who failed to oust Chafee in a brutal 2006 GOP primary, raised $26,000 from Jan. 1 through March 31, much of it in $1,000 chunks from out-of-state donors. At last report, he had restocked his war chest to $75,422.

Laffey did not respond to inquiries about his intentions.

Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis is the only high-ranking Democrat saying he has no current interest in running for governor. His plans for 2010? “The secretary has his sights set on returning to office,” says a spokesman.

Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts “is strongly considering a run for governor in 2010,” according to her spokeswoman, Larkin Barker.

Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch answered this way: “If the question is ‘thinking’ about it, the answer is absolutely yes.”

Running for governor is also something that Mayor Cicilline is “looking at very seriously,” according to his campaign coordinator, Brett Smiley, because “he has come to believe many of the problems facing the city and the state need to be fixed on the state level and so he is very interested in who’s going to be the next governor and who can do the best job.” After a trio of fundraisers hosted by Michelle Ahlborg, head of the Federal Hill Commerce Association, real estate developer Buff Chace and his wife, Johnnie, and a University Club event he hosted for himself, Cicilline raised slightly more than $160,000, from a disparate group of contributors.

Even after paying Smiley’s $17,399 bill, $5,900 to his sister, Roberta Cicilline-DiMezza for bookkeeping services, and $24,400 to the Feldman Group, a Washington-based Democratic polling organization, for an issues-job approval poll in February, Cicilline had $520,593 left.

Only Caprio raised more than Cicilline.

He collected more than $200,100 during a three-month stretch in which he hosted his own $500-to-$1,000-a-ticket fundraiser at the Temple restaurant in the Renaissance Hotel, and was feted two days later at an event hosted for him by Mark Mandell, the former president of the Rhode Island Trial Lawyers Association, and Patrick Jones, a Boston-based lawyer with the firm Cooley Manion Jones.

Much of his money came in clumps: $5,650, for example, from people affiliated with Adler Pollock & Sheehan, the Providence law firm that is counsel to the state investment commission; $12,000 from people working for Labaton Sucharow, a New York law firm that specializes in securities litigation, and $10,750 from the ranks of Cooley Manion Jones.

A $75,000 loan by Caprio to his own campaign account pushed him over the $500,000 threshold on the last day of 2007. He ended the first quarter with $705,408 in campaign cash.

Asked whether Caprio intends to run for governor, his $2,500-a-month political spokeswoman, Amy Gabarra, said: “Frank is keeping his options open as to future plans. He committed his own funds in 2007 to let donors know he was willing to commit his own money to his effort as he has done in past campaigns.”

First-term Lieutenant Governor Roberts, with $102,480 in her campaign fund, and second-term Lynch, with $178,505 in his, have a ways to go to catch up with Caprio.

But Democratic State Committee Chairman William Lynch says no one has a lock on the race. “Not to take anything away from Frank Caprio,” Lynch said. “He’s done a great job as treasurer and at raising money which is important, but I don’t think [any] of these other names that you are hearing about are at all intimidated by that.”

“I mean, we’re two and a half years out. Each of these people whose names you hear are smart people … They all know what it takes to run for governor … They all have, I am sure a strategic financial plan in place,” Lynch said. “And who knows? There may be a name out there that we are not even aware of … We’ve seen people with personal wealth just sort of arrive on the scene like our present governor and be in a position to self-fund a campaign. That’s also a possibility.”

kgregg@projo.com