Fundraising numbers for the month of may are in and while Senator Obama raised $22 million, by any normal measure an amazing haul, it was his weakest month for the year and came as his rival Senator McCain pulled $21 million marking his best month of the year. The two are about equal, Obama with $33 million cash on hand to use until the convention and McCain $31.6 million cash on hand to use until the convention.

The numbers also showed that Senator Hillary Clinton’s personal campaign loans totaled $12.175 million. Interestingly enough Clinton also raised $23 million for the general election, money she cannot use to pay off her campaign debts or to pay back her personal loans.

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While the headlines thus far have focused on the monstrous money raising of the Democratic candidates and a light enthusiasm in fund raising for Republicans, something entirely different has been happening in the background. Yes both Clinton and Obama are breaking records with individual donors giving millions to their campaigns while McCain and his former Republican rivals, Ron Paul aside, had only a light take in their piggy banks. The other story though is contained in the accounts of the parties where Democrats are actually lagging far behind the Republicans.

The Conventions
According to The New York Times the DNC’s Denver Host Committee is lagging behind in its convention fund raising falling $15 Million short of its $40.6 million goal for the event. The total amount needs to be raised by June 16th, while the party is confident the money will come in, the situation can be contrasted with the RNC which is on track to raise the $58 million it has budgeted for its convention.

The article cites the prolonged Democratic primary race as one of the potential causes of this lack of money.

Equalizing the Candidates

The Republican National Committee has enough money on hand to match Obama’s bankroll. The RNC has traditionally given completely to their nominee for the general election fight and ended April with $40.6 million on hand, ten times the amount reported by the Democrats. The McCain campaign considers this money as their own, adding this figure up with their own cash on hand to say they actually ended April with an edge.

In addition, Obama is still using his resources to fight off Hillary Clinton in the prolonged nomination fight.

Things to Consider
While the Republicans may not be in the dire financial shape that many presume there are still many factors to consider. Obama and Clinton now have donor databases that can be matched in a general election campaign to find not only the nominees campaign but also the DNC. Once the fight is over many of the small donors who gave for the primary can be tapped for a general. If Clinton supporters do make the leap to Obama, he could be boasting a small army of givers.

With that said, the massive media attention given to the candidates, the predominance of FOX News, talk radio and a slow but growing Republican Internet machine could give the McCain camp the ability to attack Obama with little to no money paid. If revelations about Obama’s past continue to flow up through these mediums.

Obama can obviously use his millions to build up get-out-the-vote efforts and strike McCain in Republican strongholds, likewise the vast apathy with the Bush administration might well give the candidate the votes he needs regardless of money spent.

In short, we may have an election where dollars could either be even or may not ultimately matter. We shall see.

AP is reporting that many states are finding themselves with massive budget shortfalls.

_More than half the 16 states reporting deficits this year have cut spending, including $1 billion by Florida lawmakers last year and across-the-board cuts in Nevada. At least eight states are debating raising taxes or fees, including a proposed $1-per-pack cigarette tax increase in Massachusetts to raise $175 million.

_Twelve states, including Georgia, Idaho and Illinois, reported that personal income tax collections were failing to meet estimates, and in eight of these, collections were even below a reduced forecast.

_Many states, including Alabama, Arizona, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada and Wisconsin, plan to tap their rainy day funds, which contain money set aside for fiscal emergencies. Nevada may use its entire rainy day balance.

This comes from a National Conference of State Legislatures report.

As I see it, here is the mess we are in. The federal government cannot stop spending money, state governments cannot stop spending money and county and local governments cannot stop spending money and so everyone is going into massive debt. There are only two alternatives to fixing these problems. You either cut spending or raise revenue (taxes). These are two options no one wants to consider because they want to get elected.

Our economy is changing, the world is fastly moving ahead of our country and in the year 2008 who is going to start telling the federal government PLUS the states they need to either cut a lot of fat or start hiking up taxes?

An interesting observation from the NY Times:

Mr. Obama is spending 75 cents for every dollar he is taking in; Mrs. Clinton is spending $1.10.

One of the amazing realities of the race is that Sen. Clinton’s entire operation has been run terribly, especially in the money game. To project the aura of inevitability at the start, Clinton seemed to burn through money leaving little in the bank for a rainy day.

From the Associated Press:

Eight of the 10 largest donors so far to the U.S. presidential campaigns are Wall Street banks, led by Goldman Sachs, according to research on Thursday from a political watchdog group.

Goldman and its executives have pumped $1.7 million into the races, with 70 percent going to Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, despite former CEO Henry Paulson’s present job as treasury secretary for the Republican Bush administration.

The Center for Responsive Politics said that securities and investment firms altogether have donated about $33 million to presidential campaign coffers, more than any other sector of corporate America, except lawyers, the center said.

After Goldman, top-giving banks are Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase, which is buying troubled rival Bear Stearns in a government-engineered bailout.

photo credit: txberiu

Politico looks over Congressional Budget Office estimates and looks ahead to the budget fight. PAY CLOSE attention to the economy and the budget over the next few months, I know I will, because it will give you an indication about what the candidates can actually deliver. Both sides have big ideas about money, with deficits, shortfalls and difficulties in funding what we already have the promise of more tax cuts, more spending and more entitlements might be pretty empty come January of next year.

Reminder too that the Bush tax cuts are set to expire, which means the “new revenue” proposed by Obama and Clinton from cutting them will only take effect for one year of their presidency and only if they get it done ASAP, as per my understanding of the fiscal budget.

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photo credit: grenade

The Clinton camp announced $35 Million raised for the month of February. Obama campaign says they will “do better” though released no dollar figure. With that said many observers predict a figure higher than $50 million for the Illinois Senator’s campaign.

The fourth quarter reports from 2007 are in and everyone is pouring over the numbers. One thing is very clear, Democrats are out-raising Republicans by an astonishing amount.

In the final quarter Hillary Clinton raised $26.8 Million while Barack Obama brought in $22.8 Million compared to Mitt Romney who raised $9 Million (but loaned himself twice that amount from his own personal fortune), John McCain raised $6.8 Million and Huckabee who brought in $6.6 Million. The only bright spot for Republicans was Ron Paul who registers almost nowhere in polling but who raised $19.7 Million.

Politico reports that the two leading Dems have raised a total of $209 Million while the four remaining Republicans have raised a total of $128 million.

Report comes from Mark Halperin who points out that no major Republican candidate has aid advertising running in Super Tuesday states one week before the vote. What can we read from it? Halperin gets right to it, Romney is waiting for results in Florida and the others just plain don’t have the money.

As Mark points out this is a major symbol from a party which just a few years ago had dominated the money race.

A report from USA Today finds that thanks to election law deceased people can still donate to political campaigns.

The Democratic committee received the most campaign money from deceased donors, nearly $225,000, according to USA TODAY’s tally of federal campaign-finance data compiled by CQ MoneyLine, a non-partisan group. The Republican National Committee was the second-largest recipient, with about $93,000.

The donors ranged from Schooler, who has contributed nearly $82,000 since his death, to Richard Lee of Nome, Alaska, whose estate gave $3,207 to the Republican National Committee in 2003. Attempts to reach Lee’s survivors were unsuccessful.

Apparently donations are allowed from the deceased as long as they do not break limits and the intentions of the deceased were known.

The whole affair brings to mind a certain episode of the Simpsons entitled Sideshow Bob Roberts in which Bart exclaims “oh my god the dead have risen and they’re voting Republican!” Unfortunately for the sake of comedy the dead are currently leaning Democrat. Sorry Bart.