Obama reported $432,000 in donations from Arizonans in June, compared with McCain’s $313,000, based on an Arizona Republic analysis of Federal Election Commission records. Neither campaign properly codes all contributions with a state, making it impossible to know exactly where all donations came from.
Link:washingtonindependent.com
Behind the headlines about the unprecedented success of Democrat Barack Obamas fund-raising machine lies a more prosaic truth - his campaign will need every penny of its $300 million goal to bankroll an unprecedented 50-state general election campaign with a massive army on the ground.
Link:The Boston Globe
The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee ended the month of June with a combined total of nearly $72 million in the bank.
Last week the campaign of Republican John McCain reported raising more than $22 million in June, which was his best month of the year.
Together, the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee [...]
Only 21 House Republicans have given to McCain from their personal campaign accounts since he became the presumptive GOP nominee four and a half months ago, according to an analysis of House fundraising reports made public Wednesday.
Link:TheHill.com
George W. Bush famously claimed to have given up golf out of respect for soldiers in Iraq:
“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with [...]
Racing sources claim one of the options being considered would allow individual campaign donors to get their name on the race car for as little as $100. Obama will also be present for a second private fundraiser on July 30 in Miami, in which team owners Beth Ann and Tony Morgenthau — staunch Republicans — [...]
In the wake of Senator Barack Obama’s decision last month to bypass public financing for the general election, his campaign is embarking on a spree of pricey fund-raising events across the country.
As Mr. Obama shattered fund-raising records over the last year and a half and collected nearly $300 million, much of the attention has been [...]
Total spending on TV ads in the presidential race is expected to top $800 million, said Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising. Such spending totaled $500 million, the previous record, in the 2004 race.
Link:Yahoo! News
Wall Street is investing heavily in Barack Obama.
Although the Democratic presidential hopeful has vowed to raise capital gains and corporate taxes, financial industry bigs have contributed almost twice as much to Obama as to GOP rival John McCain, a Daily News analysis of campaign records shows.
“Wall Street wants change and wants a curtailment in spending. [...]
Hillary spokesperson Mo Elleithee confirms to me that Bill and Hillary Clinton have now maxed out to Obama, donating $4600 to his campaign today.
It’s a strong signal to the Clinton fundraising elite and donor base that the time has come to open the wallets for Obama. It comes a day after the Obamas similarly maxed [...]
Obama announced he would become the first presidential candidate since 1972 to rely totally on private donations for his general election campaign, opting out of the system of public financing and spending limits that was put in place after the Watergate scandal.
One reason, he said, is that “John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee [...]
“We’ve made the decision not to participate in the public financing system for the general election,” Obama says in the video, blaming it on the need to combat Republicans, saying “we face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington [...]
The campaign didn’t reimburse Cindy McCain for the March 7-9, 2007, trip, which included the event near Times Square that brought in an estimated $100,000. Should it have done so?
According to federal campaign finance rules, the answer is yes — and no, depending on which portion of the code is applied.
Link:WSJ.com
Leading Democratic fundraisers predict that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) will raise hundreds of millions of dollars over the next few months if he opts out of public financing and begins raising money for the general election.
Specifically, they say Obama could raise $100 million in June and could attract 2.5 million to 3 million new donors [...]
A review of campaign finance data offers not one ounce of good news and barely any hope for the McCain campaign’s ability to compete with Obama’s fundraising prowess.
To make matters worse, Obama’s campaign, which raised $272 million through April for the primary, now is reaching out to Clinton’s fundraisers, who raised another $200 million through [...]
