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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito who wrote (90728)	10/19/2008 10:01:16 AM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 541786

A new definition of a popular referendum: Obama Raised $150 Million in September By JACOB M. SCHLESINGER WSJ Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama announced early Sunday that his campaign had raised more than $150 million in September, shattering the previous record he had set in August when he drew $66 million in contributions. Sen. Obama at a rally at Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, on Sunday. The money gives Sen. Obama a big advantage over his competitor, Sen. John McCain, in the closing weeks of the campaign. The Illinois senator has been spending significantly more than his Republican rival on television advertising in battleground states, and in traditionally Republican states like North Carolina and Virginia. Sen. McCain stopped fund raising directly for his campaign in early September, in return for $84 million in federal taxpayer funds to cover the final two months of his campaign. Sen. Obama has opted out of public financing system -- the first candidate to do so since the system was created after the Watergate scandal in the mid-1970s -- allowing him to continue seeking funds through the full campaign. Sen. McCain said this morning that the huge sums of money that Sen. Obama is raising for his presidential campaign jeopardize campaign-finance reforms. Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Sen. McCain said the identities of people who contributed more than $200 million of Obama's total take haven't been made public because the individual donations fall below the $200 reporting limit, which he said could be very dangerous. Such fund-raising shows "the dam has been broken," he said. Sen. McCain has been able to narrow the gap a bit through aggressive joint fund-raising accounts with the Republican National Committee and state Republican parties. Last week, the McCain campaign said in public filings it had helped raise $87 million for the Republican Party for the quarter ended Sept. 30. Sen. Obama has now raised more than $600 million total since launching his campaign in early 2007 -- also a record for any presidential candidate. The Obama campaign has prided itself not just on raising big money but in drawing large numbers of new small-dollar donors. In a press release, the Obama campaign said that the campaign in September "added 632,000 new donors for a total 3.1 million donors to date." The statement added: "The average donation for the month was less than $100. The average contribution for the campaign is $86."