http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/4936563.html

Barack Obama has raised in the neighborhood of $31m for his second quarter while HRC is only expected to announce around $27m.

What makes this interesting (aside from the fact that the former first lady trails a freshman senator) is the fact that he raised this amount across 258,000 donors. Clinton's campaign would not divulge the number of donors, but it is expected to be significantly lower. It has also been observed that most of HRC's donors maxed out early on in the campaign while it appears that Obama continues to draw from the smaller voters. Some are saying this has the makings of a Clinton slow-down.

Also, ABC is reporting that Edwards is expected to reach his goal of $9m and Richardson should pull in around $7m. Both are far behind the front runners, but either could still pose a threat to Hillary with her momentum obviously slowing.

[Edited on July 2, 2007 at 4:03 PM. Reason : .]

7/2/2007 4:02:01 PM

I think a large percentage of the money that edwards raised came from small contributions, ie normal people. This is not the same for Hillary and Barack.

What do they need all that money for anyway? Jesus.

7/2/2007 4:06:14 PM

I don't know the exact numbers for Edwards, but I'll be able to find out during the middle of the month. Barack definitely pulls his fair share of large donors, but I think he has also captured the small voter block to an extent.

I'm not saying I'm for or against the guy, and I think this has less impact on JRE than it does on HRC.

7/2/2007 4:15:39 PM

^ Rims and some new kicks.

7/2/2007 4:15:55 PM

salisburyboy hasn't blamed the jews yet?

7/2/2007 5:33:00 PM

Quote :

"I think a large percentage of the money that edwards raised came from small contributions, ie normal people. This is not the same for Hillary and Barack."

What? Barack is relying on a large number of small contributions as well. This is mentioned in basically any writing on his fundraising.

Quote :

"What do they need all that money for anyway? Jesus."

You're joking, right?

7/2/2007 6:01:57 PM

Here are two current CNN article titles for juxtaposition:

Quote :

"Obama's money puts Clinton's 'inevitable' nomination in doubt At the half-year mark, Obama, D-Illinois, leads Clinton, D-New York, in primary fundraising, although both contenders have raised record amounts of money for Democrats this early in the campaign. Obama's take for the last six months ($55.7 million for the Democratic primaries) is larger than the total raised by Howard Dean in the entire year of 2003 ($53 million)."

Quote :

"McCain lags in fundraising, cuts staff "At one point, we thought we could raise $100 million over the course of this campaign and we constructed a campaign to fit that," Nelson said. That, he said, proved to be faulty. The financial difficulties have fueled speculation that McCain would drop out of the race but he dismissed that notion Thursday, calling it "ridiculous." He argued that voters won't start paying close attention until the fall, and said: "I don't know why I would even remotely consider such a thing in the month of June, or July." "

It's kind of sad that their response is "well we hope people aren't looking yet."

The Edwards campaign met their goals. They are putting almost all their money into the first round of caucuses. He’s been a leader in Iowa, done well in New Hampshire, he was born in SC, and has visited all these places a lot. He’ll only stay in the top tier if they can do really well in that first round and use that to gather more support & funds. It's risky, but the campaign is doing well enough in those places that I think it’s a real chance.



Right now the other republicans really need to put some numbers out there instead of trying to leave McCain alone to be compared with the top dems.

7/2/2007 8:49:18 PM

boy, it sure is great that you have to raise 120mil a year in order to be President...

7/2/2007 8:52:43 PM

The way Bush restacked the Supreme Court got the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform overturned. Corporate money & smear campaigns will flood in even more and make future campaigns like Edwards & Obamas, that target alot of regular people to raise this kind of money, more difficult & look like small potatoes. No more "I'm so & so, and I approved this message."

7/2/2007 10:04:07 PM

Forgive me, but McCain-Feingold wasn't exactly a peach, either. it was more of an incumbent insurance policy than anything else

7/2/2007 10:38:43 PM

not really. It meant that a non-incumbent had a better opportunity of beating an incumbent.

In reality though, this is good news for a possible Gore run.

7/2/2007 10:50:09 PM

^^I don’t think it was great, I’m not sure opposing campaign finance reform is the right direction to go considering the difficulties of passing campaign finance reform that is great, and I'm not sure if it's a discussion for this thread…. except in that these democratic fundraising numbers wont always seem so impressive.

[Edited on July 2, 2007 at 10:58 PM. Reason : .]

7/2/2007 10:55:20 PM

^^ so that would be why incumbents are now winning far more often than they used to, right?

7/3/2007 7:07:58 AM

2 election cycles isn't enough to prove its worth.

7/3/2007 8:37:50 AM

McCain - Feingold is not good legislation. Personally, I'm disinclined to trust any legislation affecting elections written by a body who has a vested interest in stacking the deck.

Quote :

"Corporate money & smear campaigns will flood in even more and make future campaigns like Edwards & Obamas, that target alot of regular people to raise this kind of money, more difficult & look like small potatoes."

Corporate money goes to both sides of the aisle. They essentially invest in each candidate proportional to their estimation of their chances for victory. What McC-F really does, is hamper private interest groups from advertising.

7/3/2007 12:46:32 PM

Quote :

"Corporate money goes to both sides of the aisle."

That's true. While corporate money was flowing to the Republicans for a while because they controlled both the White House and Congress, now that the Democrats are on the rise and their presidental candidates look stronger, corporate funding is now shifting more and more to their party. Add to it the fact that the ruling also frees up union money, and we all know which party that money will be going to.

7/3/2007 12:53:29 PM

^no, all sides always have plenty of corporate "donations"...modern day political climate in the US requires it...its all about the money...hence why the democrats and republicans are both richer than you and I regardless of what they say

7/3/2007 12:56:14 PM

and doesn't anyone see a problem with that? Isn't there something wrong when companies can give millions of dollars to candidates? Isn't that little more than bribery? And, why does a nameless, faceless entity get more of a voice than the actual people for whom the representatives were elected?

7/3/2007 5:48:47 PM

OBAMA mentioned this in his speech today. He said something like there's 1/4 MILLION ppl that agree with me. this is getting REVOLUTIONARY.

7/4/2007 4:24:33 AM

It has been pointed out to me that Corporations can only give donations to PACs. Granted, PACs do in turn give to political candidates, but John Edwards apparently refuses to take PAC or lobbyist money. I guess that's his own damn fault.

7/4/2007 8:43:20 AM

GOP is praying that Osama wins the Dem nomination.....which it comes down to it, United States is not ready for a black president and most likely the Dems would loose the Senate and House if he is at the top of the ticket.

7/4/2007 10:19:10 AM

Why is it always others aren’t ready? I’ve never actually heard an individual say I’m not ready. I think America’s old enough now to handle it.

7/4/2007 12:38:33 PM

ppl will say whatever they want... but in the booth when they're all alone and they see a name that fucking rhymes with OSAMA they won't do it.

7/5/2007 12:07:36 AM

Then America is pretty fucking petty. They elected a guy who's name is a euphemism for pubic hair.

7/5/2007 1:14:33 AM

Quote :

"GOP is praying that Osama wins the Dem nomination.....which it comes down to it, United States is not ready for a black president and most likely the Dems would loose the Senate and House if he is at the top of the ticket."

This is some of the most meaningless political speculation by neophytes. Obama's skin color will have nothing to do with him winning or losing the nomination or presidency.

i wish people would get beyond that stupid trite bullshit.

OMG, north carolina isn't ready for a woman governor. It's going to happen in '08. just because we haven't had one yet doesn't mean we aren't ready for one yet.

The only two black candidates to have ever run are Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Both of whom have no respect outside of small sectors of the population.

So leave your nonsense bar political speculation where it belongs, at the bottom of a Jack Daniel's bottle.

7/5/2007 1:53:21 AM

How are you so sure that his skin color won't matter?

It seems to me if a TV interviewer has the mind to ask him if being half black is responsible for his cool, laid back demeanor, then the common person likely has other idiotic things to think of him too.

However, I do think that people harping on the issue of his race help to create a problem out of it, where as if people just ignored it, then it would be less of a problem for Obama.

7/5/2007 2:47:07 AM

Because he'll win or lose on the issues and right now, he is losing on the issues.

I believe the people who keep saying the American people are not ready for a black president aren't ready for a black president themselves and are throwing their racism onto some sort of group collective.

Besides, the individuals who won't vote for a black man are more than likely not to vote democratic anyway. So he didin't have their vote in the first place.

7/5/2007 10:20:38 AM

maybe people aren't ready for a black democrat. I'm not, especially with his shitty ideas. With that said I'm not ready for a white democrat either, once again, because their ideas are fucking horrible

7/5/2007 11:18:15 AM

^ Agreed. The way old white men are currently ruining this country is good enough for me, so don't fix what ain't broke!

7/5/2007 12:41:42 PM

^ hahahaha

7/5/2007 12:46:13 PM

7/12/2007 1:13:08 PM

Every state that voted for Bush in 2004 would vote for any Republican in 2008 if Obama is at the topic of the ticket, he has no chance of winning and the GOP could pick up a couple states(whoever that person is). Race will be a factor for the South, if Obama is top of the ticket, the south will vote overwelmingly for the GOP), especially when you got the Reverend throwing it in your face all the time.....Whoever is the GOP person, just get Jesse Helms commercial guy.




[Edited on July 12, 2007 at 7:11 PM. Reason : w]

7/12/2007 7:08:49 PM

^Who cares? It will just get the country used to seeing non-crazy negro candidates.

7/12/2007 9:04:46 PM

Quote :

"Race will be a factor for the South"

Maybe in pockets, but it won't be a determining factor. First off, large parts of the South are >50% black by county and second, the growing metropolitan areas are far more cosmopolitan and wouldn't resist a candidate based solely on his skin color.

People didn't vote for Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton because they were black still aren't going to vote for Barack Obama, but they probably wouldn't vote for a white democratic candidate either. It isn't like whole groups of white Southern moderates are going to flee the Democrat party because *gasp* they nominated a black man!

7/16/2007 10:46:37 AM

If you want to ignite a party to come out of the woodworks then put up a black man or a white woman. This will be a very lopsided election imo.

7/16/2007 11:27:23 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3M-HFGPsGw

8/8/2007 4:54:22 PM

I must be crazy, but Hillary made a good point.

8/8/2007 5:23:10 PM

Quote :

"You shouldn't always say everything you think if you're running for President"

how long til that comes back to bite her in the ass

also whats up with her saying presidential candidates shouldnt talk about hypotheticals? Half the debate questions are what would you do if this happened or if that happened

and did you hear that all the candidates had personal air conditioners at their podiums? thats how they show that they are common folks just like everybody else (and yes i'm sure republicans would also have personal air conditioners while their audiences also did not)

8/8/2007 5:30:36 PM

Quote :

"and did you hear that all the candidates had personal air conditioners at their podiums? thats how they show that they are common folks just like everybody else (and yes i'm sure republicans would also have personal air conditioners while their audiences also did not)"

The audience also isn't under tons of lighting, have you ever been on a stage? Those lights will fry you.

8/8/2007 5:35:15 PM

yeah but they had the debate outside in the summer time...it was 90 something degrees out...i dont know what would be hotter, the lights or the sun/weather...but point being, they had air conditioners, and nobody in the audience did...they apparently couldnt "tough it out" like the general public

8/8/2007 6:24:46 PM

Quote :

"This is some of the most meaningless political speculation by neophytes. Obama's skin color will have nothing to do with him winning or losing the nomination or presidency. i wish people would get beyond that stupid trite bullshit. OMG, north carolina isn't ready for a woman governor. It's going to happen in '08. just because we haven't had one yet doesn't mean we aren't ready for one yet. The only two black candidates to have ever run are Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Both of whom have no respect outside of small sectors of the population. So leave your nonsense bar political speculation where it belongs, at the bottom of a Jack Daniel's bottle."

Well, as much as I'd like to agree with you, it unfortunately may not be that simple. Remember the Harold Ford situation, and that ad by the Corkum supporters. I hope I'm wrong, but there's only one way to find out. I think that you are right about Obama, but not sure if it's a universal thought.

By the way, how could you forget Carol Moseley Braun (sp?) in the black candidates? She did run for a bit in 2004.

8/8/2007 6:37:43 PM

^^i think it's more a visual thing than a comfort thing. imagine all the pictures of a candidate who looks a little troubled in a sweat-soaked shirt.

8/8/2007 10:10:12 PM

im sure thats part of it...you'd just think when they're trying to appeal to a union audience...the average joe americans...they would try to somewhat convince them that they too are average americans and not just rich and power hungry and better than everyone else

8/8/2007 10:21:15 PM

why should they try to convince them that they're something that they're not?

8/8/2007 10:26:14 PM

its kind of one of the philosophies of their party let alone they are panderers and want votes

8/8/2007 10:30:00 PM

no it's not. someone can do things that help out the working class without having to pretend that they are working class. what idiots think that presidential candidates aren't rich?

8/8/2007 10:31:20 PM

i think one of the reasons many people are turned off to politics is because they dont feel any of the candidates can truly relate to them, and this is just another example of it, albeit a small one

8/8/2007 10:34:11 PM

i think there would far less apathy about presidential politics if they got rid of the electoral college.

8/8/2007 10:38:33 PM

Quote :

"This is some of the most meaningless political speculation by neophytes. Obama's skin color will have nothing to do with him winning or losing the nomination or presidency."

100% bullshit. you do NOT understand the electorate of America. as much as I love this country with my entire heart and soul, you forget that less than 50% of this country votes. the majority of those that don't vote are rural, uneducated (or lacklusterly educated) people. if a black got nominated, every single racist in this country would come out to vote.

8/9/2007 12:24:09 AM

^^amen...i cant stand it...if you live in a state that always goes one way or the other there is no point voting imo

[Edited on August 9, 2007 at 12:30 AM. Reason : ^pretty much agree with that also....i just can not see a negro winning in america]

8/9/2007 12:27:40 AM