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Washington: Barack Obama not only revived his own powerhouse money machine after clinching his party's presidential nomination last month, he jump-started the sputtering fund-raising apparatus of the Democratic National Committee. That could be bad news for Republican rival John McCain, who is banking on a hefty advantage in national GOP money to help offset Obama's superiority in the money fight.
Obama's campaign reaped $52 million (Dh191 million) in donations last month, his campaign announced on Thursday, up from about $22 million in May and the second highest monthly total for any presidential candidate in history, after the $55.4 million he collected in February as he began to gain control of the nomination fight against Hillary Clinton.
His June haul was about $30 million more than McCain, even though the roughly $22 million that McCain collected marked the Republican's best month of the entire campaign.
The Democratic National Committee, which had raised an average of $5.4 million per month during the first five months of 2008, reported taking in $22.4 million in June, after Obama became the presumptive nominee on June 3 and began joint fund-raising efforts with the party.
Obama's campaign reported $72 million cash on hand as of June 30; the DNC $20.3 million. That's a combined $92.3 million, nearly wiping out the Republicans' $38 million advantage the previous month.
Combined accounts
At the end of June, McCain's campaign said it had $26.7 million in the bank; the Republican National Committee said it had about $68.7 million on hand, or more than $95 million in combined accounts. An edge for the RNC is critical for McCain, who says he will take the public grant of $84.1 million to wage his general election campaign. That will limit McCain's spending to about $10 million a week between the time he is formally nominated on September 4 in St Paul, and the November 4 election.
The RNC hopes to augment McCain campaign spending with about $120 million in party funds for advertising and other support.
Obama is the first presidential candidate to forgo public funding in a general campaign since the system started in 1976 after post-Watergate reforms. The Illinois Democrat has taken heat for an about-face on the issue - he had said in the past he would take public funds if his Republican opponent did the same. And without the benefit of public money, Obama is banking on continued record-shattering fund-raising through November 4, particularly from an unprecedented internet-driven effort among small-dollar donors.
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, in an e-mail to supporters on Thursday seeking more $25 donations, said that "hundreds of thousands" contributed last month, including many first-time donors. The average contribution was $68, he said.
Through the end of June, Obama's campaign had raised a total of about $340 million, about two times McCain's total of about $132 million. Obama will have to maintain a $50 million-a-month pace to reach the campaign's reported goal of about $300 million to spend for the general election.
"I know this isn't the first time we've asked you for money, and it won't be the last," Plouffe said in the e-mail. "We have developed a strategy - a very aggressive strategy - that will only work if our millions of supporters continue to contribute their time and their money."
McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis, in a conference call with reporters last week, said the Obama campaign's heavy spending will require him to raise $10 million more per month than McCain. Obama's payroll and overhead costs are significantly more than McCain's.
During the first six months of 2008, Obama spent an average of about $32.3 million per month, most of it while still dueling Clinton for the nomination. McCain's campaign spent about $13 million a month and wrapped up the nomination in early March. In June, however, it appears McCain's campaign spent several million dollars more than Obama, based on the campaigns' announcements about fund-raising and cash on hand.
Davis last week told reporters that the McCain campaign had outspent Obama's by $10 million over the prior two months on television advertising.
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| This article on the national political campaigns in the United States is from The New York Times. It was specially selected and prepared by the editors of The New York Times News Service. |
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