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The filing deadline for 2nd quarter campaign finance reports is July 15th. Already there is the pre-deadline chatter about who raised what and candidate reactions or lack of them. One headline said the Democratic candidates were quiet about their 2nd quarter numbers. A quick visit to their campaign sites found Obama’s news section referring to a report that his campaign raised $32.5 million through the small donor strategy. Without analyzing, debating or arguing the details, if that is accurate one must say that Barack Obama’s campaign turned in a stellar fund raising performance for quarter two.

The Clinton website had no such announcement or news item. The reasons for that are unknown but one has to imagine if her money machine had done better the news would be out there. Richardson had no announcement or news item but a headline indicates he came in fourth in fund raising. Coming in fourth in a three person race speaks for itself. But Richardson can take heart that Edwards did report results on his website and $9 million compared to Richardson’s $7 million adjusts the relative strength of the lower tier money game.

The first quarter results had Mitt Romney out front which he won’t be this time according to reports. His $23 million numbers last quarter included a loan of about $3 million so the net raised is more like $20 million and this quarter’s estimate is just short of that meaning a flat trend line. McCain will miss his $10 million goal which puts him in the Edwards and Richardson club. There’s not much out there on Giuliani’s 2nd quarter but his first was around $15 million and unless he surprises like Obama this quarter his numbers will likely be about the same as quarter one.

If Obama’s large cash pile for quarter two is truly from small donors does that mean deep pocket contributors are not interested? If he in fact relied on small donors this time around can he expect a similar result for quarter three? At an average of 50 bucks per donation and 250000 donors would raise 12 1/2 million. He raised $32.5 million so the breakdown would be interesting to see. A wild guess would suggest a mixed bag of large and small donors.

It is no surprise that Edwards, McCain and Richardson are in the single digit millions category. As predicted here before, those three won’t make it to the conventions. Similarly, it is only a matter of time before the Brownbacks, Dodds and other lower tier candidates fall off the 2008 landscape. It is still a battle for supremacy between Clinton and Obama on the left and Thompson, Romney and Giuliani on the right. Nothing else really matters and is only the sideshow in this circus.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

This entry was posted on Monday, July 2nd, 2007 at 3:14 am and is filed under Money Matters, wordpress, campaign, election, McCain, Clinton, thompson, obama, romney, Edwards, giuliani, Brownback, Bill Richardson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.