Obama's January Fundraising

It is true that inflation is driving down the value of the American dollar, but even if you take that into consideration, the amount of money Barack Obama raised in January of this year is incredible. Heck, the $19 million raised by Clinton would've been astonishing in any other election year, but Obama nearly doubled that, raising about $36 million in January alone. Just a few years ago, $36 million would've been a good haul for the entire primary campaign, much less one month!


The Campaign Finance Institute released information on the amount of money raised by the Democratic and Republican candidates in January of this year. Here is the Table outlining what candidates in each party raised. Also of note is that nearly half of Obama's haul came in the form of $200 contributions or less and over two-thirds were contributions of less than $1,000. These are donors that he can go back to if he needs to, either to run an extended primary campaign or to raise money to compete with McCain over the summer. And if you are wondering why Obama is now hedging about whether he'll accept the general election grant money, consider that since last January, he has raised almost twice as much for the primary as the size of that grant in 2004.