How much of Clinton's first-quarter receipts are general election funds?

[ProSense]

She's doubling up, the maximum contribution is $4,600 for both primary and GE. How much of the $26 million is GE money?

Spokesman Howard Wolfson said they raised "considerably more" primary money than general election money but said the campaign didn't have a final breakdown yet.

link

Campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle said the preliminary figure far exceeded the goal, which was to raise $15 million in the January-March period.

Some analysts and rivals had predicted Clinton could raise $30 million to $40 million or more, with the help of her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

"We are overwhelmed by the tremendous enthusiasm and historic response this campaign has received so far," Doyle said. "Going forward we are poised to continue this success and make even more history."

Doyle and other staffers said they did not know how much of the amount raised has already been spent on her 2008 White House bid.

By comparison, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, had $10.2 million in his campaign coffers by the end of the first quarter of 2003, the year before the 2004 elections.

link

Clinton raised bout $5 million to $6 million from small donors. In 2004 the race was to raised donations from the grass roots, which is where Dean, Kerry and Edwards raised their numbers. More here.

[papau]

1. I doubt she raised much more than $10 m for the general - but would that

be in addition to the 26 million reported? And should we expect the other half of the $20 million in State Senatorial funds to be transferred later this year?

The $36 million (10 transfer and 26 new money) is not the $40 million that the right wing was trying to sell so as to make her lose the expectations game, but it actually will not be a lot if as reported Obama is only a couple of million short of her number.

Again the Obama general funds portion of his 20+ number will be interesting to see - as will finding out who is more "internet" grassroots viable :-)

Hillary's numbers:

* $26 million raised in new receipts since launching her campaign on January 20
* 80 % of the contributions were $100 or less.
* $4.2 million raised on the internet (including $1 million in a week during the One Week, One Million campaign, and nearly $600,000 online in the 36 hours preceding the deadline)
* $6 million in total grassroots donations (internet plus direct mail and telemarketing receipts)
* 50,000 donors (tens of thousands of them new donors)
* Contributions received from residents of all 50 states (plus Washington, DC)
* $10 million transferred from Senator Clinton’s successful senate reelection account

From a Clinton press release.

Now we wait for a similar Obama press release :-)

[cassiepriam]

2. Where is all this money coming from? Can they trace all the big donors?

[ProSense]

3. Edwards raised $14 million, including about $1 million for GE

<...>

The Clinton campaign also announced that she had transferred about $10 million from her last Senate campaign, bringing her total receipts for the quarter to $36 million. Edwards had no such transfers of money.

Clinton aides would not specify how many of her contributions were designated only for the primary election and how many could only be used in the general election, if she were the party's nominee.

Edwards' aides said about $1 million of his contributions could only be used in a general election.

Neither campaign divulged how much money it had spent in the quarter or how much cash it had in hand.

<...>

link

[flpoljunkie]

4. We don't know. The Clinton campaign is not saying.

[ProSense]

5. The unknowns.

<...>

Unlike Edwards, Clinton aides would not reveal how much of her total was available only for the primary election and how much could be used just in the general election, if she were the party's nominee. By not breaking down the amount available for the primaries, the Clinton camp made it impossible to assess how much of an edge she actually has over Edwards.

Edwards' aides said about $1 million of his $14 million in contributions could only be used in the general election, should he win the nomination.

Neither Clinton nor Edwards disclosed how much money they spent in the quarter or how much cash they had in hand — numbers that also give clues to the relative strengths of the campaigns.

Still, the total raised by each candidate outdistanced past presidential election records and set a new bar by which to measure fundraising abilities.

<...>

link

[ProSense]

6. Leveraging Strength: Comparing Obama and Clinton's Donor Numbers

MATT BROWNER HAMLIN

Bio

04.03.2007

Leveraging Strength: Comparing Obama and Clinton's Donor Numbers

As Arianna Huffington ably documents, the story of the first quarter Democratic presidential numbers is not one of dominance by Hillary Clinton, but the extremely strong showing by Barack Obama. Almost 30% of Clinton's reported money for the quarter was transfered from her Senate account, which means that it was raised before she was officially a candidate (no one should have deluded themselves that donations to her 2006 Senate reelection campaign were really about the need to save HRC from Jeanine Pirro).

And as Arianna notes, the Clinton camp is delaying the release of information about how much of Clintons 1st quarter totals is earmarked for the general elections. Without doubt, Clinton's $26 million raised this quarter is going to shrink further in terms of what she can actually use in the primary, which should be the only thing candidates are worrying about now.

Obama has not yet released his official numbers yet, but the word is that it's going to be somewhere in the $20-23 million dollar range. At minimum he has kept pace with Clinton and it's conceivably that once Clinton's general election donations are purged from her number that Obama will have exceeded her fundraising for the quarter. I'll leave aside how remarkable that is for a moment, though.

Both Obama and Clinton are hyping the number of people who have donated to them. Obama had 83,531 donors and Clinton received money from 50,000 people. John Edwards, who I'm going to otherwise ignore in this post, had 40,000 contributors. Given the close proximity between Obama and Clinton's total fundraising numbers for the quarter, the fact that Obama had two-thirds more contributors shows a far greater reliance on donors who didn't max out this quarter. That is, his supporters are more likely to be able to donate repeatedly at smaller levels. Obama's baseline donor support is more likely to be sustainable Clinton's based on this quarter's evidence (and assuming neither candidates' donors decide to switch their support elsewhere).

<…>

First, Conventional Wisdom says that one of Hillary Clinton's largest advantages in this race is the fundraising institution that is Brand Clinton. 250,000 names, spurred on by Bill Clinton, was supposed to be the catalyst to annihilate the Democratic field. That didn't happen. At minimum Obama kept pace with the volume of donations and was at no institutional disadvantage this quarter with regards to the size of his fundraising database. Quite the opposite -- he had more contributors than names in his universe.

more

[ripple]

7. That's a great point about Obama donors not being maxed out

I've made a couple of donations, but I'm not even close to being maxed out. I look forward to contributing more as the process moves along. I'm sure there are a lot more like me, plus many first-time contributors who have yet to be tapped.

Obama is running an incredible grass roots campaign. I hope the momentum continues to build, not just for fund raising, but for new voter recruitment. I think the 18-25 crowd is largely Obama's for the taking.

[IndianaGreen]

8. Arianna Huffington: "Hillary is the dream candidate for the GOP. "

Follow the Real Money

Arianna Huffington

What is it with the media and the Clintons? Something about Bill and Hillary just seems to throw off the instrumentation of reporters. It's not that the reporting is consistently too negative, or consistently too positive, just that it's so often not the truth -- or at least, not the whole truth.

For instance, I can see why Hillary's camp would want to trumpet the $36 million that appeared in many of the campaign fundraising stories. But I can't understand why anyone in the media would lead a report with this number. The real story is that Obama's take for the primary may be staggeringly close to Hillary's, despite the fact that he is a newcomer competing against the most powerful money machine in American politics. We'll know just how close after the Obama campaign releases its own report and the Clinton campaign discloses how much of its first quarter take is earmarked for the general campaign.

But in the meantime, the media were happy to repeat the Clinton camp's pre-packaged story. The worst offender was Matt Drudge, who started off the day trumpeting the claim that Hillary had raised $36 million with the headlines: "AMERICA LOVES HILLARY -- TOP FUNDRAISER FOR ROUND ONE: $36 MILLION," and "Hillary in blowout with $36 million," and declaring her the "winner" of "round one."

Maybe Drudge happily declared her the "winner" because he shares the opinion that Hillary is the dream candidate for the GOP. Which means that, at least until the nomination, the interests of the Hillary camp and the right-wing media strangely converge with both sides celebrating her as an unstoppable juggernaut.

But the larger question is, why did the rest of the media go along with this charade? Because, as the Hillary camp presented it, the story is about as real as John McCain's casual shopping stroll in Baghdad.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/follow-the-real-money_b_44839.html