Obama Fundraising and What It Means

I've gotten a few calls on this issue of how much money Barack Obama has raised, with the spin that somehow this is bad for Republicans.

Come again?

The person who should be most concerned about Obama fundraising is Hillary Clinton. (I thought this would be obvious.)

Bill and Hillary should have the longest list of IOU's of anyone in the Democrat Party. Eight years in the White House. Zillions of dollars raised. Campaigning for every left wing cause out there.

And after all that -- Hillary is facing a real challenge from a guy absolutely no one outside of Illinois knew 12 months ago.

If anything, Obama's fundraising is an indicator of weakness on the part of Hillary Clinton within her own party.

Worse, this weakness comes without an associated strength. That is, it's not as though the Democrat base is unhappy with her because she's been so warm and cozy with President Bush and Republcians. If Hillary was spending time reaching out to the center and Republicans, causing her base to be unhappy, then one could argue she's pursuing a general election strategy and one could explain away the grumbling on the left.

Instead, she's been a hard core leftist (no "new Democrat" mumbo jumbo coming from this Clinton), and the Democrats are still dissatisfied enough with her that Senator Nobody from Illinois will have the funds to compete in multiple primary states.