It's amazing the level of expectations Obama has set on fund raising that this seems good but not awesome. I would really be interested to hear what they picked up since Tuesday. Clinton is reporting $4 million, which is impressive.

Give 'em hell, Barrack! I did my part for today ($50). Any speculation on Clinton's numbers?

Wow! OK, Obama supporters, let's make it $60M in March! :^)

Beautiful.

obama 08' + 12'

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR HILLARY!!!

Yay! And Hillary is doing awesome, too! It is just an incredible year. These two candidates will both make history.

I think I'll go see if we can do $60 million for March...
:O)

Finally... signs of life from the BHO campaign.

Impressive total but Ron Paul has raised incredible sums of money without that translating into political support.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/02/news-shocker-ro.html

Wow.

And how much good did all that money do him on Mar 4? If he has to spend twice as much as Hillary (or more) to get far fewer votes, that should make the Obama campaign proud why, exactly?

Donated another $50 to Obama. Glad to see that so many others are continuing to contribute - he's raised an impressive amount, but he's going to need all of the continued support that he can get in the coming weeks.

Money well spent.

Short answer: Drumming up votes.

Longer answer: Pwning the Dem Party. Since these were most likely Repub voters that want to see a match up between Hillary and McSame.

What's this mean? Psychologically it's hilarious: Every joke that's ever been told about how the right needs the Clintons to survive is true. Hillary Hatred is the gas, the ethanol, and the rocket fuel of the staggering GOP.

If didn't help him in Ohio and Texas.

i wonder what the HRC camp reaction was when they heard the news?
It took them 48hrs to get some good news out, but it was worth the wait. This will be in the news cycle all weekend long and i bet the Hillary camp will try to do something to combat this.
knock this out of the news cycle.

One of the reasons the Clintons have held sway over the Democratic party for so long is their fundraising skill.

I'd wager the fact that Obama can raise simply staggering sums is going to be a huge factor for the super delegates.

Bret 08, didn't help him in OH and TX??!?!? Gee, I don't know, keeping the net delegate loss to 5-10 when having been behind by 20 points two weeks prior seems like a lot help to me.

LA Times says much of the money Hillary raised was from illegal immigrants and people that couldn't have afforded the donations.

Obama can take and raise all the money he wants to but he ain't going to buy my vote.

She is going to win Pennsylvania, north carolina and a few others with out having to raise that much.... she did it in texas, ohio and rhode island and she'll do it again:)

I think its funny.......... He raise 55 million and he out spend her in ohio & texas and yet he couldn't ended the game and become the parties leader.....

I am going to laugh all the way to the bank when she pulls off more wins, while he is raising raising raising all this money....

Maybe when she wins, he'll hand over all that money to her:):):)

Hillary can you spend me some of it when you get it....thanks

lol.... it makes him look stupid i think:)

The story about the$55 million Obama raised appeared on the NYT home page, (web front page), for approximately 22 minutes.

Yoo Hoo. Superdelegates... You want some of this love?

That's these numbers mean.

It doesn't matter how much BozObama raises - it won't buy him the Whitehouse. It didn't buy Texas and Ohio. Real Americans can't be bought. Only fools are impressed by money. Its not how much money you have but what you do with it that counts. Yeah - she is poised to win Wyoming and PA. The MI and FL do-overs will go to her. Watch Puerto Rico come through. The patriots of America will vote for Hillary.

NC? Stop with your crazytalk.....Stick to the idea that all the money raised doesn't count because it wasn't donated by "real Americans", that goes over alot better.

I'm in for another $50, but please don't tell my wife (she is for Obama as well, but is a bit more responsible when it comes to the family budget).

It will be interesting to see how March works its way out. I expect both candidates will do well at raising money, but Obama will continue to maintain an edge.

Too bad that Clinton has opted for the "kitchen sink" strategy. Worse that it proved effective. Obama likely has no choice, but to fight fire with fire (remember the Rose Law Firm, Whitewater, the "vast right wing consipracy," the 1994 Elections, the infamous kiss of Suha Arafat, and those pesky tax returns which she is waiting to reveal after she is the nominee).

As Democrats, wouldn't we all prefer both candidates to use their vast war chests and attack Bush and McSame and demonstrate how they would be more effective ont taking the battle to them? G-D knows that the GOP is going to continue to attack us.

I understand Clinton not wanting to get out of the race now (though the pledged delegate math is hopeless for her), but to continue to use the GOP playbook to go after Obama is murder-suicide.

Given that neither candidate can clinch the nomination without pledged delegates, Clinton must understand that her tactics run a huge risk of alienating super-delegates. Double that for super-delegates who live in the so called "unimportant, small Red states" that also just so happen to elect very important Democratic governors and members of Congress; e.g. Arizona, North Dakota, Montana, Kansas, etc.

In the end, if Obama maintains his pledged delegate and overall popular vote lead, no matter how slim those leads may be, it is very hard to see him not being the nominee.

Greg, small correction. HRC raised $35M in February, not $36.

You were perhaps thinking of BHO's $36M in January?

Arguably, the most important decision in politician career is the decision to send young people to war. Nothing come close.

The History called HRC on the phone, in 2002, but she was busy doing political calculations. And who is paying the price: thousands of young people frying in the desert, and losing their lives, limbs and sanity.

Would trust her answering such a call again?

This race is a clash between 20th century mentality versus 21st century solutions. It's time to let the new century in. Old methods have brought is in the shitty state we're in.

Felix

He could have dealt Hillary a knockout blow in OH and TX. He spent all of that money, got all of the newspaper and union endorsements, continued to have the MSM fawn all over him, and she is still here. She has more momentum than ever. Hillary is a strong, tough, fighter. Obama is weak. He has all of the advantages and he still can't outright win this nomination. He won 11 in a row and she is still a viable candidate. Something about Obama says not a real winner, not a fighter and not tough enough.

Publicus - what three more today? I only saw 2. Then we lost Boxer to Clinton - supporting her constituents and all that.

McSame...hadn't heard that til today. AWSOME!

It's a pretty sad commentary that the greedy Obama campaign is all about raising ever more money from limousine liberals so they can outspend Hillary two to one, and drown out the voice of the working man and retired folks on fixed incomes. Wealthy Republicans have already installed their choice. Soon affluent Democrats will buy theirs too. And in the fall, most working class Americans will stay home and let the rich folks battle it out.

Obama has all the advantages?

Hmmm, let's think, which candidate is

1) Married to the former president and arguably the most popular member of the party;

2) Started the race with a large financial advantage and has the personal resources to draw upon them when needed;

3) Supported by the party insiders and machine;

4) Been a nationally known figure since 1992

5) Blessed with the middle name of Rodham, as opposed to... well you know

6) Lucky to be in a race with a candidate, who has had the restraint not to mention Norman Hsu, Whitewater, etc. when his opponent raised Rezco(I think that luck jsut expired)

I could go on, but any truly objective observer looking at the enirety of this race would have to conclude that the fact Obama is still in this race in March, let alone leading, is a remarkable turn of events for an election that for much of last year and really up untill Iowa looked like it was going to be a coronation for HRC.

I think HRC supporters should be the LAST ones to make comments about wasting money... $100,000 on groceries in Iowa, $1,000,000 on hotel rooms in Vegas, Mark Penn Mark Penn Mark Penn = $136,000,000 blown before Feb 5th.
People in glass houses and all.

I have done the math.... I'm counting on her to win huge in Pennsylvania and Have those delegates in florida and michigan seated and have the super delegates vote for her....And the polls show the race is tight in all the other states except pennsylvania where she is going to pull off a huge victory:) and win all the others.....
He can have wyoming and mississippi if he wants them.... Hillary wants the big states.... the big states is what it will take to win president, if obama can't win one big state then how can he win as president.....

I am so looking forward to more dirt coming out about him on the news:):)

But when it is all said and done, it will be a clinton/obama ticket
GO HILLARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Limousine Liberals for Obama? I have given a few hundred dolalrs over the course of the campaign and drive a 1997 Corolla, work for a non-profit and will be paying off my graduate school debt till I retire.

If that seems too anecdotal, recall that more than 90% of Obama's online donations were for $100 or less and that more than 50% of his online donations were for $25 or less. Yes, that reamaining 10% consisted of some relatively large donors, but because of campaign finance reform, they max out somewhere around 2K. It is a fact that Obama has a much larger base of supporters and that HRC has been historically been more dependent upon the so called "limousine liberals" that you decry and maxed out on their contributions to her months ago. Hence, the need for illegal 527's to bail out HRC. Don't worry though, the FEC won't dole out any fines until 2010.

April, May, June is along time away.....

I am so looking forward to hearing more about Antoin "Tony" Rezko trail

And don't forget that pennsylvania only allows democrates to vote in the primary and that the african-american population is not that big and pennsylvania is home to many of the same people in ohio:):):) I hope she pulls off a huge victory like john mccain did in vermont.

Hillary Clinton '08.

Do you really believe that all of Michigan and Florida's delegates will be seated based upon January's sham elections in which all of the candidates pledged not to campaign and only HRC's name was on the ballot in Michigan? (Most likely there will be some sort of re-vote, in which I expect HRC to win both, but by no where near the same ratio as before. Funny, how much harder it will be for HRC when Obama's name actually appears on the ballot and there is a real campaign).

And do you really think barring some crazy unforseen scandal that Obama is going to lose North Carolina and Oregon? Have you ever been to North Carolina or Oregon? Those states are up to their eyelids with Obama's core constituencies.

And finally, do you really think for a moment that Obama would lose the critical "big states" of California or New York in November against McSame?

If yes, I either truly feel sorry for you or think that your posts are a wonderful satire of a HRC supporter.

In the end, I will conceed that if HRC has more pledged delegates OR more popular votes than she will have a strong moral claim to the support of the supers?

Do you have the intellectual honesty to pledge the same if the situation is reversed and Obama continues to have the pledge delegate AND popular vote lead?

Finally,,,,,,,,, NPR just reported Obama wins Texas,,, by 3 to 5 delegates.

If Hillary is so tough then why does she ignore so many states and only claims to campaign in states where she has a huge lead weeks before the vote. And what's with the constant whining and victimization claims? Don't confuse tough with narcissistic. They are different, you know.

Obama won Texas.

You know, they called it the Texas Two Step For a reason. In spite of negative campaigning, inspite of Rush Limbaugh telling Republicans to vote for hillary, in spite of her 20 point lead two weeks before, Obama held her to less than 5 points in the primary. Step One.

I just got off the phone with my sister who lives in College Station, she reports the many conversations she has had with people who took advantage of early voting weeks before March 4th to vote for Hillary. They were so turned off by her negative campaigning that they made a point of attending the caucus so they could switch their support to Obama. They are still counting the caucus votes. But apparently with 44% reporting, Barack is winning 56% - 44%. Step Two.

It is looking very good for Obama. He is poised to win Texas. And that would put them at 2-2 for March 4th. I also think that super delegates are not stupid. They are waiting to see how Texas turns out before making decisions. Final results will be reported tomorrow.

The news cycle going forward is going to be how Obama has raised a record breaking amount of money from a record breaking number of small donors, then we will move on to how the MSM called Texas for Clinton prematurely, and finish up with some more Obama victories in Wyoming and Mississippi. By this time next week, we will be back on track.

And who knows, maybe we can convince some of the new shows to report the truth of the Canadian scandal as well and about Clinton's Rezko connections. But that would just be icing on a very tasty cake.

I would like to give a shout-out to Greg DeLassus and everyone who writes thoughtful comments while keeping an eye on the big picture.

Passionate supports for Obama and Clinton should temper their trash-talking and save some passion for the election in November.

Whatever it costs the taxpayers in Michigan and Florida to re-do their primaries – whether it’s $18 million or $25 million or even $30 million – would almost certainly be money well spent for their states. That’s because those states potentially stand to gain a lot more from having another round of what could be critical presidential primaries.

The Democratic Party stripped Florida and Michigan of their delegates because they moved up the date of their primaries in violation of party rules. If Michigan and Florida have primaries in June after the last scheduled Puerto Rico Democratic caucuses on June 7, and neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama yet has the needed number of convention delegates, those two states will become the center of the political universe.

Think about how many millions of dollars will be pumped into the Michigan and Florida economies. The two campaigns alone will spend millions in political advertising. Other outside political interest groups will pump in millions more in commercials. The hotels, restaurants and other related industries in the states will be in high demand.

Both of those states will also gain an enormous amount of publicity, not only in the United States but around the world. It would be a bonanza for their respective tourism industries. Just think about the coming economic gain for Pennsylvania which holds its primary on April 22. This is one of the best things to happen to that state in a long time.

Remember — those are key factors why both Iowa and New Hampshire are always so diligent in preventing other states from usurping their first-in-the-nation status for the presidential contests. People there make a lot of money from their caucuses and primary.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean says the national party can’t afford to foot the bill for another round of primaries, and that the states should pay for a re-do of the votes. (Normally, states pay for primaries; political parties pay for caucuses.) Politicians in Florida and Michigan say they don’t have the cash. That, however, may be a shortsighted stance.

One can make a very strong case that two more potentially-decisive primaries – with hundreds of delegates at stake — would not only determine the Democratic presidential nominee, but would in effect become a significant economic stimulus package for both of those states. It would be an amazing cap to an already amazing political season.

– CNN Anchor Wolf Blitzer

I am so proud of him. It was quite exciting watching the counter head up to 1 million donors. But 385 thousand NEW donors is sure to make some people stop and think about just what this reflects. Sure, it would be really great to know data about the provenance of those donors. But just the number of individuals is really quite amazing.

Think about the disappointment of those 385,000 people if the supers do something slimy...

I'm proud to be one of them, too.

I dont see how she will win MI when Detriot alone is 82.70% black and Jesse won it 55%
Im sure Obama can do better than Jesse

Superdelegates care about staying super. That means they'll support the candidate with the best chance of winning, and look for a rationale that'll make it possible for them to do so.

BHO consistently outpolls HRC against McCain. BHO is outraising HRC by staggering amounts. BHO looks more likely to win red states. BHO's message is part of what is driving record turnout in primaries. BHO will have more pledged delegates and more of the popular vote.

When frankly0 says pledged delegates don't matter if we end up with a brokered convention, that's nonsense. If the Democratic party picks a candidate who has fewer pledged delegates, less of the popular vote, less ability to win in November, and frankly less appeal, then Oxy Limbaugh and his ilk will be mighty happy.

Gave another $60 to BHO Wednesday, plan to keep on doing it.

Just gave $25 for Obama. I've never donated to any campaign in my life but felt it was due time. I'm really impressed with how he pulls together communities and is rebuilding the party from the ground up. Town by town, state by state.

Everytime the Clinton Campaign spews a new lie or smear we make a new donation to Obama. The ways things are going, my spouse and I will soon be maxed out.

BBpdx,
You misunderstand -- I'm not complaining about it; I'm citing facts. With the limited attention span of the clowns in the MSM, one has to stay on these guys 24/7. Heck, every time Obama tanks these guys come rushing in to prop him up, and after colossal loses in OH and TX, they're doing it again.

It's the media bias that fuels the Hillary insurgency -- real working democrats see it. Don't you?

GMFORD,
Thank you. It is certainly a good thing to me that she is not Obama. By the way, are you one of those republican supporters of Obama that he's always droning on about? Speaking of republican supporters, I'm expecting Obama to announce an endorsement from a family of Bigfoots living in the woods of Pacific NW. You must be a republican -- only a republican would ask "Does she not have enough good qualities to talk about?"

Hello! The democratic nomination is not a personality contest. Hillary was fighting for democrats and democratic issues when Obama was spending his days smoking a lot of dope and going by the name of "Barry". You've got to be kidding me Hillary Clinton vs. the pretty-boy empty suit formerly known as Barry --- you must be a republican.

BBpdx,
Yeah -- "tank" as in can't win the big one -- "tank" as in can't put Hillary away in the big blue states -- "tank" as in outspent Hillary 2-1 in OH and lost by 10 points.

The delgate count? The last bastion of a loser --"Haw Haw Ha Haw Haw -- I'm still leading in the delgate count because I ran up big wins in states I'll never win in the general and lost the big states that a democrat must win in the general -- I'm still a pretty-boy empty suit but Axelrod beats Penn..."

Can't wait til PA.

Go Hills!

Thanks Mikey I love you too :)

I prefer plain old drip coffee with a healthy splash of non-dairy creamer.

If Hillary has more pledged delegates, more of the popular vote, raises more money, and gets mroe people to the polls then she'll deserve the nomination. As it stands, none of those things are yet true and none are likely to happen. It's cool you dig your candidate - but I think you might be engaging in ad hominem attacks that aren't helping your argument. I don't speak Latin though so I can't say for sure.

If Hillary gets more delegates, mroe popular vote, polls better against McCain, raises more cash and gets more people excited she'll deserve the nomination and I'll vote for her. So far it looks very likely that none of that will happen.

You gots mucho passion which is cool, but we're kinda all on the same team here I think, I just prefer Obama.

Hillary Clinton is a monster. She must have her daughter:

Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.”

– Sen. John McCain, speaking to a Republican dinner, June 1998.