Republicans Still Getting Their Asses Kicked

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Remember back in April when the first quarter fundraising reports showed how badly Democrats were trouncing their Republican rivals? Well the second quarter ’07 presidential numbers are in, and shit is looking even worse for the GOP.
Mr. Romney’s campaign announced that it brought in $14 million in contributions for the second quarter, and that the former Massachusetts governor had personally lent his campaign $6.5 million. Those donations to his campaign represented a drop from the $20 million he raised in the first three months of the year.
Mr. Giuliani’s campaign raised $17 million from April through June, a slight increase from the $16 million that the former New York City mayor raised during the first quarter, when his fund-raising was just getting started after the announcement of his candidacy.
$17 million isn’t exactly chump change and is actually quite an improvement for Giuliani, so one could argue that things are going just fine for Republican presidential hopefuls. You could say that, until you look at how Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did the last three months.
The overall figures show the Republicans trailing the top Democratic presidential candidates, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. Mr. Obama raised $32.5 million from April through June, while Mrs. Clinton raised $27 million.
Yikes. Thirty-two million dollars. That’s roughly double what Captain 9/11 brought in last quarter. Hillary’s numbers also doubled-up Moneybags Romney’s haul. All in all, that’s a butt-whippin’.

It gets even worse for those candidates who aren’t in the top tier, like our old buddy John McCain.
The presidential campaign of Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who once seemed poised to be his party’s nominee in 2008, acknowledged yesterday that it was in a political and financial crisis as a drop in fund-raising forced it to dismiss dozens of workers and aides and retool its strategy on where to compete.

The campaign said the decline in contributions had left it with $2 million. It said it had raised just $11.2 million over the last three months, despite Mr. McCain’s promise to do better than his anemic $13 million showing in the first three months of the year.

Mr. McCain’s advisers blamed his close association with the recently defeated immigration bill, which was strongly opposed by conservatives already skeptical of his ideological credentials. But he has also had to contend with a host of other issues, including his support of the Iraq war, opposition from evangelical voters, the prospect of former Senator Fred D. Thompson’s entry into the race, and the sense that his continuing struggles to raise money were consuming the campaign and making fund-raising even more difficult.
So with Republican leaders lagging woefully behind their Democratic counterparts, Fred Thompson’s impact on the race completely unknown and John McCain having trouble raising money with the gigantic fork sticking out of his back, it’s no surprise that the folks at the RNC are a little jumpy. That’s even before we mention that all three major Democratic presidential candidates are currently dominating head-to-head presidential polls up and down the board. In short, it’s not a good month for them.

All of that said, the real story is Obama’s record fundraising quarter. After besting Clinton in Q1, Obama repeated the feat in Q2 and did it while by recruiting an unprecedented number of donors to his cause.
Senator Barack Obama raised at least $32.5 million from April through June, he announced Sunday on his campaign Web site, attracting more than 258,000 contributors since entering the Democratic presidential race nearly six months ago.

As candidates tabulated how much money they raised in the year’s second quarter, Mr. Obama, of Illinois, appeared to be leading contenders from either party, raising at least $31 million for the primary campaign alone. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, raised about $21 million for the primary, a spokesman confirmed Sunday, and about $27 million over all.

“Together, we have built the largest grass-roots campaign in history for this stage of a presidential race,” Mr. Obama said, adding that 154,000 new donors had signed on in the last three months. “That’s the kind of movement that can change the special-interest-driven politics in Washington and transform our country. And it’s just the beginning.”

Mr. Obama waited barely 12 hours after the fund-raising period closed to trumpet his success, a quarterly record for a Democratic candidate, hoping to depict widespread support for his campaign and to rebut suggestions that his candidacy is falling behind Mrs. Clinton’s.
Yeah, I’d say amassing a quarter of a million donors when most candidates are struggling to hit the 6 digit mark qualifies as “not falling behind”. While it is worth noting that Obama seems to be focusing on raising money for the primary and Clinton seems to be concerned with the general, it’s also astounding that someone who wasn’t even a candidate 6 months ago could have come this far this fast to establish himself as the dominant fundraiser in the race. We’ll see what happens once Hillary brings in the big guy, but as of now she’s got a hell of a fight on her hands and a bit of egg on her face, courtesy of the Distinguished Junior Senator from Illinois.

Subrosa was one of the 258,000.

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