Ok, this is great news - FOR HILLARY!

LOL!

So I take he has more in his war chest for the general. Good. I don't see any reports that he's in debt and Clinton is in debt all over the place.

Isn't it because so many of her fatcats have maxed out on what they can legally donate to her primary campaign, and to stay on the Clinton Family Gravy Train, they have to keep giving for her (ahem) general-election campaign?

Seems like Hillary tends to set more aside for General than Obama does. Not sure why, though.

I don't believe this is a matter of choice. When an individual donor has given $2300 during the primary, any donations beyond that must go to the general (till the $2300 limit is reached again).

This what's meant by talk of Hillary's donor's being "maxed-out" early in the campaign; she has less donors who give more money individually (at the beginning of the primary) than Obama's donors.

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR HILLARY!!!

!!!HILLMENTUM™!!!!

Many of her donors are maxed out on what they could give for the primary, so any thing they give about the limit has to go into the general election fund.

She also had planned on winning it all on Super Tuesday, despite the fact that she now pretends to champion letting all the voters have their say. If she had accomplished what she set out to do, and had locked up the nomination on Super Tuesday, Hillary would not now give a rat's arse about all the remaining states having their say.

Money definitely isn't everything. But it helps.

Note one important difference here -- TIME. Obama had only, really, about a week and a half to focus his energies on 2 big states in advance of OH and TX. And he narrowed big leads in that time, and was able to organize well enough to sweep the TX caucuses and take an overall win.

Now, he'll have effectively up to 7 weeks to focus on PA, and we can already see how that's going.

Not saying he'll win it -- PA seems almost uniquely designed to highlight his demographic weaknesses. So he may fail to catch up. But the data coming over the wires these days strongly suggests that Clinton won't have the big blowout she needs.

We must not overlook the fact that Obama has generated so much enthusiasm within the Democratic electorate that people who had never donated as much as a dollar to a campaign are giving for the first, second, third times. And these aren't just grass/netroots/activists sorts; they're college kids, working class folks, the African-American community. This is not only good for Obama, but also all the down-ticket campaigns...an entire new class of donors that can be tapped.

WaPo reports

"Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), an Obama supporter, said he was shocked when he learned Obama attended just one fundraiser in February. Casey, by contrast, attended 450 fundraisers during his 2006 Senate campaign."

"Even Clinton's most energetic boosters expressed exhaustion by the call to raise more money. "I'll tell you, after a year of doing this, it's like asking me to run a half-marathon after I've run a marathon," said Mark A. Aronchick, a co-chairman of Clinton's Pennsylvania campaign, who is organizing five fundraisers over the next eight days."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040300407_pf.html

I have a question:

Obama ended February with about $30 million remaining. Hillary ended up close being in the red. If he raised another $40 million to her $20 million in March isn't Obama sitting on a mountain of cash?

Here's a question: We all know campaign finance laws limit contributions to $2,300 each for the primary and general election campaigns. So why does Clinton adviser Lanny Davis get to give his candidate $5,000, or $400 over the legally allowed max?

I noticed this is the campaign finance tracker on the Washington Post site. Apparently, Davis made two $2,300 contributions on January 26, 2007, which would have been right after Hillary announced her candidacy. But there was another $400 contribution made on February 26, 2008. All three payments are listed as contributions to Hillary Rodham Clinton. She had just won reelection to the senate, so she wouldn't need to raise money for that.

Here's a link to the WashPost site: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/finance/search/?last_name=davis+&first_name=lanny&employer=&occupation=&zipcode=&recipient=&date_from_year=2007&date_from_month=1&date_from_day=1&date_to_year=2008&date_to_month=3&date_to_day=1&at_least=&up_to=