Behind Obama's Triumph

Mainstream Media types and political bloggers alike are talking about Barack Obama this morning and his outpacing Hillary Clinton in fundraising--again. Obama raised $31 million for the primaries in the last quarter versus $21 million for Clinton (for whom my spouse works). The gap wasn't as big when you throw in money raised for the general election--$32 million versus $27 million. But the mere fact that Obama is able to out raise Clinton at all--and for the second quarter in a row-- is still impressive given that Clinton was widely expected to lead the money race. He's built it with an army of small donors to whom he can keep returning for fuel as well as big time fundraisers.

What's interesting is that Obama has not seen a surge in the polls either nationally or locally. (I thought he'd be ahead of Clinton by now.) He's only ahead of Clinton in South Carolina--an important but no longer pivotal post-Iowa-New-Hampshire primary now that it looks like the more Clinton friendly Florida primary will be held the same day. (With its ex New Yorkers, older voters and Hispanics Florida's Democratic primary electorate is less African-American and Obama ready.) We're still in a position where Edwards shows great strength in Iowa where he's ahead, Clinton leads in New Hampshire and nationally. But now Obama has a chance to really dictate the terms of spending, potentially launching an arms race that he can win.

If Obama can actually start winning some of these debates, he might really start to put it all together. But if you saw last week's debate at Howard University, with all African-American journalists, you know what I mean. Obama did fine, but given that the crowd was with him, it wasn't so impressive. His answers were flat and generally lost energy while Hillary fared better at building strength as she answered. A post-debate focus group with the debate's moderator, Tavis Smiley, and pollster Frank Luntz showed people switching to Hillary with one Barack supporter saying, "I wish he'd given Hillary's answers."

Keep an eye on Bill Richardson. His $7 million raised wasn't bad, just a hair behind John Edwards's $9 million which should have been higher. The MSM has written off Richardson as a goofball but he's still got some potential to surge if Obama and Clinton fumble.