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October 2, 2007

Dems Keep Raking in the Cash (Updated)

Rick Moran
If money is indeed the mother's milk of American politics, the top Democrats running for President can open their own dairy:

The Democratic presidential candidates continued to raise significantly more money during the last three months than their Republican counterparts, according to official and unofficial third-quarter fund-raising tallies that were released yesterday.

Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat, raised at least $20 million over the summer, more than $19 million of which could be spent on the primary — showing that he continued to be a formidable fund-raiser.

It was unclear whether he still led in fund-raising, as he did this spring, because Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton did not release her tally. (Her aides had said that they expected to raise a similar amount.) John Edwards raised $7 million, and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico raised $5.2 million.

By comparison, Mitt Romney, who has been one of the strongest Republican fund-raisers this election, raised only about half of what Mr. Obama raised this summer, according to a senior adviser who was granted anonymity to discuss the campaign’s finances. The adviser said that Mr. Romney brought in about $10 million from donors, and that he used more than $6 million of his own money for his campaign.
Rudy Guiliani also didn't release any data but claims his fundraising was on par with other Republicans. Which other Republicans would be interesting to find out. Senator Fred Thompson raised a so-so $8 million - but a variety of factors cut into his ability to raise a lot of cash.

Thompson was hamstrung until he formally announced his candidacy from raising money as other candidates since his exploratory committee couldn't raise more than he would be able to use to run the committee. He is raising about $200,000 a week and has 70,000 individual donors. He will have to do better between now and the primaries if he hopes to compete with Guiliani and Romney.

The Democrats are energized and well organized. The Republicans are somewhat lackluster and dispirited. There is still time to turn the situation around but given the trends, 2008 does not look like a Republican year.

UPDATE

The Washington Post reports that Hillary Clinton raised an astonishing $27 million in the quarter just ended:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign announced this morning that she had raised $27 million in the third quarter, $22 million of which was for the primary. The figure topped Sen. Barack Obama's showing from July through September. Obama brought in $20 million, $19 million of which was in primary funds.

Mrs. Clinton has been earmarking a portion of her campaign receipts for the general election since she began running for president.  It is clear that she will have a sizable advantage over any Republican who emerges as the party's candidate.

Some analysts believe she will be able to raise upwards of $100 million for the general election. Given her astonishing ability to raise funds so far, few are doubting that she can do it.

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