You can call it spin, but it has the benefit of being quite obviously true. Any Dem nominee is going to be able to raise money hand over fist, and all of their max primary donors, and probably most of the max primary donors to the other campaigns, are going to max out for the general election as well.

So raising money for the general election now is pointless and including it in the fundraising totals is disingenuous.

"The point being, of course, that if Hillary's total turns out to be higher than theirs, it's only because she's padding her numbers by including general election funds in their final tally."

So you are saying Obama's camp is trying tamp down expectations? Kinda playing politics with their fundraising. Most likely they are gonna play the “Wow look at what we raised” card.

Ex. from the first quarter:
One week before Q1 ended, the Obama campaign predicted he'd raise $7 million to $12 million: The Washington Post reported, “Senator Barack Obama has similarly played down his goals, with aides saying they would be thrilled to take $7 million to $12 million this quarter.” However, the Obama campaign actually brought in $25.7 million.
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/06/28/how_they_set_expectations_last_quarter.html

Like they had no clue the total would be more than double. Please.

Edwards:
One week before Q1 ended, the Edwards campaign predicted he's raise about $7.4 million: John Edwards raised a record $7.4 million during the first quarter in 2003. The Cox News Service reported "This year, the Edwards' campaign is trying to tamp down expectations. Spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield said the goal was ‘to exceed our fundraising total from the last time.'" However, Edwards actually raised $14 million.

Hillary:
Just before Q1 ended, the Clinton campaign "stuck with estimates" of raising $25 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Clinton campaign actually raised $25.8 million.

So in the first quarter the Clinton camp nailed it. The other 2 top tier candidates were either playing politics or had no clue.

You're mostly right, but it does show that Edwards' grass roots support is thinner than one might expect, because, thankfully, one positive thing about the internet is that anti-union corporate sponsors are not needed to raise millions of dollars. Obama is proving that by raising almost all of his money from small contributors.

Eric -

9million is double what he did in 2003.

Also, who the F cares about the money so much.

Hillary's taken in many millions from Lobbyists and PACs so who cares who has the most.

The fundraising is precisely why Hillary would not answer yes or no to pardoning Libby. The fundraising apparatus in DC likes Libby.

Allow Steven Levitt (co-author of everyone's favorite cocktail book: Freakonomics) to drop some knowledge on the subject:

http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUsingRepeatChallengers1994.pdf

This paper finds that once district-specific factors and the quality of the competing candidates are controlled for, the impact of campaign spending on election outcomes, regardless of incumbency status, is small but positive.

...

If campaign spending matters so little, as this paper asserts, why do politicians work so hard at fund-raising and spend so much money? There are two possible explanations. First, the opportunity cost of raising funds may be very low compared to the value of winning an election, so that even if there is only a small probability that spending affects the election outcome, it is worthwhile. Alternatively, it may simply be that politicians have confused correlation and causality when considering the relationship between spending and electoral success

...

Perception, however, is everything. The belief that money is the key to electoral success is almost as damaging as a scenario in which money really does matter. As long as conventional wisdom views money as critical, the patterns of behavior that have led to widespread criticism will remain

Obvious caveat being that that was a study on congressional elections, I don't know of anyone doing something similar with Presidential elections, in fact, the same analysis wouldn't be possible, there's just not enough data.

Anyway, there's definitely a saturation point, with the best model from that paper being a squared relationship, in other words, diminishing returns above a certain level. Edwards is betting that 9 million this quarter, and 40 mil before Iowa, is the inflection point, the optimum amount to raise without having to sell your soul and still win.

The last paragraph is the most relevant here, with the media driving the perception that it's the most important thing. Eric, are you on the side of driving perception or maintaining reality?

UPDATE: if you click on the link to the paper, the site inserts a space after the last slash. That always happens with long links on here, and I don't know how to fix it.

No. The obvious indication is that whatever HRC posts as her number cannot be trusted, because it will include money earmarked for the General. In other words, he's beating her in total donors, and total primary money raised, despite getting into the race 3 weeks after she did.

What I really want to know is campaign burn rate.