Inevitability: It Just Isn’t What It Used To Be

When this campaign started 7 or 8 years ago, the conventional wisdom was Hillary’s organization and fund raising prowess would swamp the Democratic field.

Well something funny happened on the way to her coronation…Barrack Obama showed up. Now he’s flush with cash and she’s dropping her own money into the coffers.

"Late last month Sen. Clinton loaned her campaign $5 million," Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said late yesterday, after he was first questioned about possible Clinton-self-financing in a conference call with reporters.

"The loan illustrates Sen. Clinton's commitment to this effort and to ensuring that our campaign has the resources it needs to compete and win across this nation," he added.

Her senior campaign staff is now working on a volunteer basis.

Obama meanwhile has already raised over $2 million dollars in the first week of February as a follow up to his $30 million take in January. And the most amazing thing?

...according to the Obama campaign, only 3 percent of his donors have given the maximum $2,300 donation for the primary.

…In contrast, Clinton raised about half of her money from donors who gave the maximum.

More striking, the report found that nearly half of Obama’s individual contributors in the fourth quarter of 2007 gave donations of $200 or less — amounts so small that the Federal Election Commission doesn’t even demand the givers be named on disclosure reports.

That my friends is one big donor base with a lot more in the well.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Hillary campaign finance story without the obligatory mention that some of the money she’s donating may come from sources that aren't quite kosher.

Meanwhile…John McCain is still going to be the Republican nominee.

posted by DrewM. at 08:21 PM

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