Obama Campaign Raises Earth-Shattering $25 Million
This just in from Sen. Obama:
In less than three months, a staggering 100,000 Americans have contributed to our cause — tens of thousands more than the number reported by any other campaign. That’s on top of the hundreds of thousands who have attended rallies, started groups and shared their ideas and energy.
It’s been a truly historic response — a measure of just how hungry people are to turn the page on this era of small and destructive politics and repair our American community.
And because of that extraordinary base of support, we were able to raise an astonishing $25 million — $23.5 million of which can be used to help us in the upcoming primary contests. [Emphasis added]
It’s hard to know where to start in hailing this news. First of all, $25 million is an enormous sum of money and substantially more than most people projected him to raise.
Second, and perhaps most impressive, it seems in the final tally the campaign received donations from a staggering 100,000 contributors — twice as many as reportedly contributed to Sen. Clinton’s campaign, and by far the highest number of all the candidates of both parties.
Third, the vast majority of that $25 million can be used in the primary, meaning Sen. Obama has not tapped out the donor base on which he can rely in the general election. It has been widely reported that many other candidates have been collecting money for both the primary and the general at once, and Sen. Clinton notably has not released information about how much of her total can be used in the primary.
Finally, it’s worth noting another statistic that’s buried in the coverage of this announcement:
Obama, 45, raised about $6.9 million on the Internet from more than 50,000 donors, his campaign said. That compares with $4.2 million for Clinton.
This is an undeniable sign of the dominance of Sen. Obama’s campaign in mobilizing a new generation of voters. In the first three months of his campaign he is already leading the pack online, and very nearly running the table in general. The excitement is there, the inspiration is real, and these numbers are here to prove it.
This is going to be fun.
