February 22, 2008
Wow. Obama on track to raise more than $60 million in February
Patrick Ruffiini does the math.
According to my initial projections off this crowdsourced spreadsheet of Obama donations I set up after the Wisconsin victory, Obama has already raised at least $45 million for February and is on track to raise $60 million for the month.Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton's donors got an eyeful when her finance report was released. She ended up January in the red, having to loan her campaign $5 million. Could be because of expenditures like this:
A source who tracks Obama’s public donation number like a hawk tells me that Obama had tallied about 256,000 donors for the year as of the end of January. Those donors produced $36 million in receipts, for an average contribution of $140. Obama’s public donor count stands at 583,525, meaning about 327,000 people donated in February. With the same average, that would give Obama just over $46 million in 21 days.
This is in line with the expectations game they are playing. The campaign says they will raise at least $36 million in February. You can bet that they wouldn’t say that if they hadn’t already passed the mark, plus a decent sized buffer. Their lowered expectations call for them to beat January’s total, when they will in fact blow them out.
Nearly $100,000 went for party platters and groceries before the Iowa caucuses, even though the partying mood evaporated quickly. Rooms at the Bellagio luxury hotel in Las Vegas consumed more than $25,000; the Four Seasons, another $5,000. And top consultants collected about $5 million in January, a month of crucial expenses and tough fund-raising.Her campaign bought those party platters for pre-caucus parties in Iowa. They also purchased a large number of snow shovels. It never snowed.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s latest campaign finance report, published Wednesday night, appeared even to her most stalwart supporters and donors to be a road map of her political and management failings.
Several of them, echoing political analysts, expressed concerns that Mrs. Clinton’s spending priorities amounted to costly errors in judgment that have hamstrung her competitiveness against Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. “We didn’t raise all of this money to keep paying consultants who have pursued basically the wrong strategy for a year now,” said a prominent New York donor. “So much about her campaign needs to change — but it may be too late.”
Her staff is making extraordinary amounts of money:
Howard Wolfson, the communications director and a senior member of the advertising team, earned nearly $267,000 in January. His total, including the campaign’s debt to him, tops $730,000.Keep talking, Howard. You're digging yourself a deeper hole every time you open your mouth.
The advertising firm owned by Mandy Grunwald, the longtime media strategist for both Mrs. Clinton and Bill Clinton, the former president, has collected $2.3 million in fees and expenses, and is still owed another $240,000.
“Fees and payments are in line with industry standards,” Mr. Wolfson said. “Spending priorities have been consistent with overall strategic goals.”
Bottom line; Obama will be able to comfortably fund any campaign plan he comes up with for the remaining races while Hillary will be living basically hand to mouth while relying on 527 groups to help her get her message out.
Oh how the mighty have fallen...