Here is my quick set of impressions:

1) It is hard to judge who stole who’s spotlight, it all depends on how reporters judge it. You can easily look and say “wow, the amount Obama has been able to raise is enormous and wonderful and shows his Internet strength and appeal to new voters and some heavy hitters in the Dem elite etc. and he will shakedown Clinton.

You can also argue that the steam was taken out of Obama. Not only is Clinton pretty much matched up for the primary money, she has $12 Million in the bank for the general election. She is leading in all polls, she is leading in the states, she has a wide group of endorsements and a national campaign network built up over the last thirty years.

2) Clinton will have to defend herself but she has enough money to continue playing offense. Obama has to spend a lot of the money he has reaching out to the wider audience. The campaign was very happy about the 200,000+ number of donors. That is wonderful and a great sign of his prowess and the power of the Internet. We are however a nation of 300+ million. He will now have to go out and convince primary and general election and independent voters and not just the Internet and the far left of the party that he is a viable candidate. That will cost lots and lots of $$$ and will also force him to start playing tuff against Clinton.

The harder he hits her the less he looks like the polished, peaceful, hopeful up-and-comer and more like a politician. As he moves to the rest of the primary voters he could start offending those on the left who have already started to wonder just where exactly he stands on Iraq and if he is the “real deal”.

3) Obama is the gateway to Clinton for the other candidates. If Dodd, Edwards etc. go after Clinton they strengthen Obama. If you notice a lot of attacks have been “I am talking in this general direction” as the ‘out there’ candidates try not to offend the frontrunner who could soon be in a position to hand out jobs and favors in a couple years and not strengthening the hand of the person right behind her who could also hand out jobs and favors because he will have benefited from unseating the Queen.

Edwards and the others have to breakthrough Obama first if they want to reach Clinton. Obama will have to take down Clinton while fending off Edwards and the rest.

4) Everyone has been complaining about the lengthened election cycle. I have news for you, the game will be on much sooner than it feels right now. We have Aug – October to watch some candidates slowly drop out while others make their moves. Then its winter and then its primary season. Primary season will be over before you know it.

Obama needs to start spending cash. He needs to get on television, get in the press and start convincing people he knows his stuff. That means traveling. Clinton simply needs to continue carrying out what has been a very well crafted strategy since the start.

I have one giant word of advice for the Obama camp. Right now you see the money and the Internet numbers and the college crowds and you feel like you can take it all. Don’t bank on that. Young people a) don’t have the numbers you need to win and b) don’t actually turn out when the vote comes. A good chunk don’t even know what it means to be registered to vote, trust me I spend a good deal of my day around college kids. Also a big chunk of them are foreign students here on student visa’s. They can’t vote for you anyway.

Meanwhile the Internet people are great, I am an Internet person as you can see here. We are a fickle bunch though. We turn on a dime and we are pushy. We seem like we have a lot bigger army behind us than we really do. Your campaign needs to be one of the voting people, not just “the people” in the royal sense. Seriously if you believe the average voter is on Twitter, Facebook & MySpace, you need to think again.

Television Obama camp, television!

Those are my observations, take them for what they are worth.