AUGUSTA — While Republican Gov. John R. McKernan and Rep. Joseph E. Brennan, McKernan’s Democratic challenger, both push toward $1 million in campaign funds, the third candidate for governor lags far, far behind.

Andrew Adam of Augusta, the independent candidate and real-estate agent, had raised only $3,266 by the most recent filing deadline. Both McKernan and Brennan had raised more than 200 times that much at the same July 24 filing date — McKernan $719,367 and Brennan $754,450.

The major-party candidates also spent 100 times as much as Adam, and the ratio between their cash balances was even more lopsided.

Brennan had $457,205 cash in hand on July 24 — 1,000 times as much as Adam’s $456. McKernan had almost $388,000 cash on hand.

McKernan was able to add another $200,000 to his total on Tuesday during an afternoon of golf with President George Bush at the Woodlands Country Club in Falmouth. Forty contributors of $5,000 apiece got the chance to hit some golf balls with Bush and McKernan.

That was the biggest single fund-raiser ever held in Maine, breaking a record of $170,000 set by Brennan and Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell at a Portland dinner party last May.

The next campaign-finance reports won’t be turned in until Sept. 25, six weeks before the Nov. 6 election, but McKernan and Brennan both should have reached or exceeded $1 million.

Adam got on the November ballot as an independent by collecting more than 4,000 voter signatures and turning them in on primary election day in June. A political newcomer, he was known only locally as a vocal critic of Augusta city government.

Adam said Wednesday he needed more money to compete with the major party candidates, but he also chided them for spending so much.

“They are the best politicians that money can buy,” said Adam. “Their donation list is reflective of how they will run government. It’s a trail of who got what when in the last term, and who will get what when in the next term.”

“I couldn’t spend $1 million if I had it,” Adam said.

Admitting his campaign was “squeaking by,” Adam vowed he would be elected governor spending “the least amount of money in Maine history.”

“I don’t feel negative. I feel positive,” Adam said, “but I do need money.”

Adam loaned his campaign $1,929 and his biggest contributor was Daniel Larrabee of Augusta, who gave the campaign $800.

Adam said a decision by WCSH-TV in Portland to exclude him from a Sept. 4 debate between McKernan and Brennan generated some sympathetic support and he’d just received a $1,000 check from a supporter disappointed to see him excluded.

Among various ideas espoused during interviews with reporters, Adam has proposed lowering taxes and reducing the size of the Legislature and its staff. He also wants to cut the size of the Attorney General’s Office.

He said if he were governor, he would obtain line-item veto power for the governor even if he had to circulate referendum petitions to get the measure past the Legislature.