"We're not just doing this for money! We're doing it for a shitload of money!"

Thank you, Spaceballs.

The WaPo reports:

Sen. Barack Obama raised at least $25 million for his presidential campaign in the first quarter of the year, putting him just shy of Sen. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, who made a splash with her announcement Sunday that she had drawn a record-breaking $26 million.

Obama (D-Ill.) appears to have surpassed Clinton in several ways: He raised $6.9 million through donations over the Internet, more than the $4.2 million than Clinton (N.Y.) raised online. He reported donations from 100,000 people, double the 50,000 people who gave to Clinton.

Wow. This really is a shitload of money. Look for the billion dollars spent in 2004 to be demolished this time around. I don't have any interesting analysis of this fundraising that isn't already being said. Barack's camp and supporters are visibly happy, his detractors say he didn't raise enough to steal the spotlight from Hillary. Meanwhile, Hillary's camp was visibly happy, too... right up until they saw how much Obama raised, that is. Thew big question mark surround her is how much of her money is for the primary and how much for the general? Obama has 23.5 million for the primary, almost all of his current warchest, while many believe that Rodham Clinton raised a good chunk of her change for the general. That's not to say she can't catch up in primary fundraising, but it suggests that Obama is eating up much of the early primary money, people he can go back to again in the general and ask for more... leading one to believe his source of funds is more sustainable. But who knows? I don't think either one, or whomever the nominee becomes, will have trouble raising money against Bush's Republican party. So maybe primary money is all that matters...

Interestingly, Obama released a day after the rest of the Dem field of 08ers. Now I have not heard if this was because he couldn't get his shit together in time to release with everyone else yesterday, OR if this was some strategic decision to wait a day and make a big splash. If the latter, it's a pretty big gamble considering any figure less than Hillary's would have made the wrong kind of news. Especially on the heals of this article yesterday highlighting the rest of the field's 1st Q fundraising, titled: Clinton Shatters Record For Fundraising. I think it worked out well and he'll get a favorable spin in the news since he scraped past her in a few areas and was damn near her record breaking total, and because he presumably has an advantage in primary $$, but it was a gamble for sure (you have to imagine the camp's keep this type of info pretty close to the vest, and while Team Obama may have had a hunch they raised more than Team Clinton, they couldn't have known before making the decision on when to release that info publicly).