I griped to Janeite about this WaPo story when it came out last week, but now that we have more fundraising numbers, I feel confident enough to gripe to the world about it.
The article says that because Obama is asking donors to give to Clinton (to help retire her debt), his fundraising machine is showing “signs of wear.” The only empirical evidence in the article is displayed on the graph on the right, which shows Obama’s per-month fundraising numbers falling from February to May. Yes, that’s right, Clinton’s debt is to blame for Obama’s “poor” fundraising ($22 million in May still seems high to me) during a period when Clinton was still in the race. When the Post decided to run this article on July 11th, five days before June fundraising numbers are reported, they really didn’t know what the true impact of Clinton’s debt on Obama’s fundrasing would be. The data don’t say one way or the other. Maybe they would get lucky and Obama would have a terrible June in terms of fundraising.
Not so much. Obama raised $52 million, more than doubling his May take. Oh, and that measly $22 million that Obama raised in May? It’s the exact same amount that McCain raised in June. Still waiting for the Post article about how the McCain machine is lackluster.
Late Update: After years of being behind, Dems finally have fundrasing parity with the GOP: Obama+DNC=$92m CoH, McCain+RNC=$95m.