Obama $20M turns heads

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign turned heads Monday, reporting that the Illinois Democratic senator raised $20 million for the third quarter with more than $19 million for use in the primaries.

The third quarter generally is considered the toughest fundraising period because of the slow summer days that are included in it. But Obama’s hefty haul, his lowest of the year, brings his total for the primary to just less than $75 million.

{mosads}By contrast, Obama rival and former Sen. John Edwards’s (D-N.C.) campaign spent Monday afternoon trying to portray its decision to accept public matching funds as a positive, using the opportunity to attack Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) for not doing the same.

“The Edwards campaign says it opted into the public financing system out of principle,” a Clinton spokesman, Phil Singer, said. “Others might come to a different conclusion.”

The Edwards campaign said it raised about $7 million in the third quarter, and has a total of about $12 million cash on hand. Edwards adviser Joe Trippi said excluding between $1.5 million and $2 million in general election funds and adding the $10 million they expect to receive in taxpayer dollars, the campaign is looking at a total of about $20 million.

The Clinton campaign was the big question mark on the Democratic side Monday, as most of the campaigns released the majority of their figures. The senator has been locked in a record-shattering fundraising battle with Obama all year.

Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) raised just less than $2 million in the third quarter, according to an aide, but cash-on-hand totals were not available. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s (D) campaign said over the weekend that it had raised about $5.7 million.

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) raised about $1.5 million for the quarter and has about $4 million cash on hand, according to a campaign aide.

The Obama campaign was seemingly more enthusiastic about the number of donors — 93,000 for the quarter, more than 350,000 for the year — than the dollar amounts.

As they did after the first and second quarters, campaign officials used the shocking amounts of money to paint a picture of an intensely competitive race with the front-running Clinton.

“Many in Washington have spent the last weeks declaring [the] outcome of this race to be pre-ordained, and the primary process a mere formality,” Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, said in a statement. “Yet in this quarter alone, 93,000 more Americans joined our campaign, because they desire real change and believe Barack Obama is the one candidate who can deliver it. This grassroots movement for change will not be deterred by Washington conventional wisdom because in many ways it is built to challenge it.”

The Edwards campaign also used the day to hit Clinton, saying the former senator’s Democratic rivals should follow his example in utilizing the public financing system.

“Hillary Clinton does not want this election, this primary, framed on the issue of money,” Trippi said.

Trippi and deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince said that because Clinton has said in the past she supports public campaign financing, she should join Edwards.

“Will she explain to the American people why she doesn’t mean what she says?” Trippi said.

When asked why they reserved their criticism for Clinton and not Obama, the campaign officials said Clinton epitomized the issue.

“We feel like there’s a very strong distinction between us and Hillary Clinton,” Trippi said. “The sharpest clarity, the sharpest division is between us and Hillary Clinton on this.”

Edwards’s paltry-by-comparison third-quarter sum and his late decision to accept public funds has raised some eyebrows about his sincerity on the issue of campaign finance.

The Republican candidates were slower to unveil their numbers, as both former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney had not disclosed their figures by press time Monday.

Former Sen. Fred Thompson’s (R-Tenn.) campaign said he raised at least $8 million in the third quarter, not including the $3.5 million he raised in June. A campaign official did not know the breakdown between general and primary funds or how much cash on hand the ex-senator’s campaign has.

Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) campaign on Monday disputed press reports that the senator, who has struggled with fundraising and spending throughout the year, raised $5 million but had $2 million in debt.

A McCain campaign official said the reports were inaccurate, and they would release numbers Tuesday or Wednesday.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) was another question mark Monday, as his campaign said it will not release his third-quarter numbers until they’re filed with the Federal Election Commission. The filing is due Oct. 15.

But Huckabee campaign manager Chip Saltsman told The Hill his team did better than the $764,000 it raised in the second quarter.

Huckabee has said his fundraising picked up after his second-place finish in the Ames, Iowa, straw poll in August, but Saltsman said some of the fundraisers they scheduled after the straw poll won’t be held until the fourth quarter.

“We’re not going to have millions of dollars, but we always knew that,” Saltsman said.

Saltsman added the campaign has seen its receipts increase since the straw poll.

“It’s not crazy money, but it allows us to stay in the game,” he said.

Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-Texas) campaign said it would exceed the $2.4 million it raised in the second quarter. Last week, the campaign raised $1.2 million online, far exceeding its goal of $500,000.

Klaus Marre contributed to this story.