Obama, DNC score big month for fundraising

August 16, 2008

The McCain campaign scored some favorable headlines yesterday when it announced that it had raised $27 million in July. How’d the Obama campaign do over the same time period? Obama’s team sent out this press release this afternoon:

Senator Barack Obama’s campaign announced today that more than 65,000 new donors contributed to the Obama campaign during the month of July, bringing the total raised for the month to over $51 million. More than 2 million people have now contributed to the campaign.

“The 65,000 new donors to the Obama campaign demonstrate just how strongly the American people are looking to fundamentally change business as usual in Washington. We are proud of the millions of volunteers and more than two million donors to the Obama campaign who will provide the backbone of our campaign to put America back on track and reject the old politics and failed Bush policies, which is all John McCain is offering

,” said David Plouffe, campaign manager of Obama for America.

McCain’s $27 million was the best month for his campaign to date, but it was nevertheless about half of Obama’s total. What’s more, given that Obama spent a week in July overseas, when he held no fundraisers, his total is all the more impressive.

Of course, given the circumstances, what matters just as much as the individual candidates’ totals are the hauls from the respective parties. And July was very encouraging on this front, as well.

The Democratic National Committee has announced that they raised $27.7 million for the month of July, just edging out the RNC’s $26 million, the first time this whole cycle that the usually-underfunded DNC has outdone the RNC. The DNC, including its joint committee with the Obama campaign, has $28.5 million cash on hand, bringing the Democratic total with the Obama campaign to $94.3 million — just narrowly behind the Republicans’ aggregate total of over $100 million on hand.

I’d just add one, off-the-wall thought to this. Obama’s totals are pretty impressive, and would constitute a pretty decent political story, and yet, the campaign released the numbers on a slow Saturday afternoon, instead of waiting until, say, Monday.

I’m just speculating here, but it makes me wonder if the campaign might have some other kind of news that will be announced early in the week….

Hon. Sen. McCain only has till the GOP convention to spend any monies contributed directly to him before he’s under the $85 million cap, right? I wonder how much he has on hand? will he even raise enough to get near the cap?

  • They might have released their numbers on Saturday so as not to allow McCain’s $51-million haul to dominate the Sunday-morning TV gabfest.

  • And the MSM is drooling and licking their lips..it’s Christmas for the campaign profiteers. I for one, demand that the campaigns be given free air time and allowed at least ten free ads to run without charge.

    If these demands are not meant then I will begin charging $500,000/min for turning on my TV or radio and their broadcasting comes over my airspace or my airways. Now I’m drooling at the prospect of charging money for the process our democratic society is based on.
    Whose argument is really the more ridiculous?
    Get extortionist profiteering out of our fundamental democratic processes.

  • I assume that you are suggesting that the news next week would be the VP pick. Any ideas on who he is picking? I would prefer to see a governor rather than a Senator because we need all the Dems in the Senate that we can get.

  • Well, I hope everyone has signed up for the text message from Obama on the VP pick! You (and a few million of your closest friends) will be the first to know.

  • How does McCain’s total of $27 mil = $51 mil? -Former Dan

    Ah, that’s easy. McCain gets about $14 million in free ad time from the corporate media every month.

    🙂

  • I’d be interested to know where the money goes — McCain ads are apparently in heavy rotation in my area (NH-MA) and I’ve only seen a couple of the Obama ones. (I rarely watch TV, so I could simply be missing them, but whenever I do watch, I invariably see McCain ads.)

  • zhak,
    I’ve seen a few Obama ads, but I try not to watch ads at all–praise be to the DVR. I think Obama is spending a lot more on organizational stuff–more offices in tight states, and in spreading the campaign wider than it has been in the past. That, to me, is a better use of his money.

  • What’s more, given that Obama spent a week in July overseas, when he held no fundraisers, his total is all the more impressive.

    Trust me, folks, in ObamaWorld, fundraising goes on 24/7/365. We will pick you up by the ankles and shake you till the last penny falls out of your pockets. 🙂

  • McCain’s $51-million haul

    27 + 14 = 51

    Saturday night, and I’m surrounded by mini-Rovians. Damn….

  • 27 + 14 = 51 — Steve, @ 14

    Huh? On which Arithmetical planet of the Mathematical galaxy?

    McCain’s and Obama’s hauls cannot be compared. For all intents and purposes, McCain and RNC run a kolchoz (or kibbutz) campaign: the resources are pooled together, then all are used for McCain. So, the haul for McCain is $53mil (27 of his+26 of RNC’s).

    On our side, we’re running this thing according to the old Polish “semi-socialism” principle: “what’s yours is mine; what’s mine don’t you dare touch”. All Obama’s money is Obama’s, but not all (if any) of the DNC’s is spent on him. So, Obama’s haul is $51mil. He’s 2mil short of McCain, but that’s OK.

    But, I’m glad to see that Dean was right and that, once the primaries were over and we knew where we stood, the donations to DNC picked up, significantly. He’ll need every penny to stretch the elections beyond the narrow focus of the *presidential* race.

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