I spent a fair amount of time thinking and talking to people about Obama's fund-raising. I know that it's around the 20th of every month that the totals come out. So for the past week, I've been thinking a lot about what his September number would be.
August was $67 million. I was guessing that September would be $75 million and that for October, for the final push, he'd top $100 million.
And now, gadzooks, the September number is $150 million. It's really staggering. Most money that campaigns raise is spent on television ads. But remember that the Obama campaign is also banking on an unprecedented get-out-the-vote operation. That is expensive. Done right, it requires tons of field offices, tons of paid outreach workers (as opposed to volunteers) and massive amounts of money spent on phone banks and literature and so on. This number makes it pretty clear that Obama is going to be able to fund this massive operation to whatever extent he sees fit.
It's worth remembering here that September, at least the first half of it, was a comparatively bad time for Obama. He was behind for the first half of the month. McCain-Palin had the momentum. Democrats and liberals were tearing their hair out (do you say hairs? We have serious disagreements about these plural/singular constructions, like math and maths and sport and sports, and there is no discernible pattern). Obama wasn't doing this, wasn't doing that. His partisans were dispirited for half the month of September, and still, $150 million.
Makes you wonder what the October numbers will be.
