FACTCHECK: Obama Campaign Fundraising Still Sluggish

If you were to read the AP this morning, you could be forgiven for thinking that the President is an unstoppable fundraising juggernaut. He's not.

The Democrats took in about $42 million in the last quarter for the President's campaign and about $24 million for the DNC. Including a $1 million take for a state race fund, he had a combined total of about $68 million.

That's impressive, but not overwhelming. Particularly because just as the campaign season gets into full swing---even as Obama made two dozen taxpayer-funded campaign trips around the country---his much-discussed fundraising cachet is eroding. His combined total in the third quarter was $70 million. For the quarter before that it was $86 million. Anybody else sensing a trend here?

And Obama's draw, for all his supposed $1 billion campaign, is actually less than President Bush's in his final election. Remember, back when Bush was supposedly unpopular because of the Iraq War? In the fourth quarter of 2003 the Bush campaign raised almost $48 million. Adjusted for inflation that's $59 million, a whopping $17 million more than Obama.

Don't believe the lying media. Obama isn't inevitable and he's not a magic money machine.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 07:17 AM

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