Monday, April 02, 2007

Hillary Raises $36 Large; Beware of Front-Runneritis



Senator Clinton surpassed her mark with record numbers for 1Q 2008 fundraising (between $30-35 million was considered on the high end) Now the big question is how will Obama do in comparison, especially since he did not have Hillary's $10 million Senate war-chest. Still, front runners ought not to be too confident. From Peter Fenn of TheHill's Pundit Blog:

"The political vacuum cleaners are in high gear — pulling in the campaign cash fast and furious. Hillary has amassed $36 million in the first quarter, which includes $10 million left over from her Senate run. Barack Obama will announce soon; his numbers are presumed to be impressive as well. Edwards has nearly doubled the $7.4 million he raised in the first quarter of 2003. Bill Richardson, one of my favorite long-shots, came in with a solid $6 million, with $5 million left in the bank.

"Here is my point: A lot of these candidates will raise the funds needed to be competitive through next January. Of course, the super-primary day of Feb. 5, when over half the Democratic delegates may be chosen, poses another set of problems for a cash-strapped campaign.

"But my advice right now is beware of frontrunner-itis. The ones with the most money may not be the ones who end up as the nominees. Remember Howard Dean with his $45 million-plus? He didn’t make it out of Iowa. The candidates who are leading in the polls now may fail to keep up the momentum this year or early next.

"Once candidates reach a threshold to be competitive, the money chase may be less and less important. What will count is the ability to win early primaries and caucuses and prevent a campaign meltdown this year. I suspect we may see some who are out front now fade fast. In addition, the field is far from set. The two Thompsons (Fred and Tommy) look like candidates for the Republicans and Al Gore has the luxury of waiting until fall."

The full article here (TheHill)

2 comments:

John said...

Don't believe the hype, Ron. That $36 million figure is baloney as a first-quarter fund-raising total. As noted, it includes $10 million from the Senate campaign, and it's not hard to "raise" $10 million if all that's required is deciding to shuffle it to another account. $26 million is impressive in itself, but if Obama beats or matches the buzz that he raised $21 million, the Clinton inevitability train will all but derail.

The Corsair said...

Thank you, John. You are totally right about Obama if he does make over $21 million it would mean that he made as much as Hillary did -- without a beloved former President in his corner doing fundraising.