What was the buzz in the MSM last year as Hillary Clinton was raising tens of millions of dollars for her New York Senate reelection campaign? Her fundraising prowess was likely to discourage a strong challenge and propel her towards the 2008 Democratic nomination.
An article in Newsday says, Not so fast
WASHINGTON - She was supposed to be the queen of cash, but Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been forced to share her fundraising throne with Sen. Barack Obama.
Clinton raised a record-vaporizing $26 million in the first quarter of 2007, Jan. 1 to March 31, and is rolling $10 million more from her Senate re-election account into her presidential coffers. But even her upbeat campaign finance chairman, Terry McAuliffe, had to admit that Obama probably has raised a similar amount. "This is going to be a race," said McAuliffe, the former Democratic National Committee chairman who was President Bill Clinton's top money man. "Nobody ever said we are going to walk away with this."
More below the fold.
Once the aura of inevitability is gone, how do you regain it? In a just-published report in 'The Politico,' an aide from a rival camp says
An adviser to one of Clinton’s rivals expressed some relief at Clinton’s total.
"They’d counted on grinding the whole field into dust, and that didn’t happen," the adviser said. "Now they have to win a fair fight."
With Barack Obama's 1st quarter take reportedly very close to Hillary's (I just heard on MSNBC that it might be around $24 million) and the Edwards Campaign confident that they can compete vigorously, we're probably in for a dogfight. Importantly, the playing field has been levelled for now
Clinton's campaign team tried to put the best face on the numbers, leaking to the widely read DrudgeReport.com that they had pulled in $36 million in the quarter, conflating her new fundraising with the Senate rollover.
It earned the screaming Drudge headline "America Loves Hillary," but obscured the dawning reality among supporters and observers that her pre-campaign aura of inevitability is no more. "The veneer of invincibility argument was designed to discourage candidates from entering the field and that had already failed," said Hunter College professor Andrew Polsky.
Why didn't the Clinton Campaign (unlike the Edwards Campaign) disclose how much of her take included donations for the General Election? An email I received earlier this afternoon from The Hotline provides a possible explanation
It will be a tough week for HRC and McCain, who, instead of taking victory laps, could see their perches questioned by underwhelming reports. Ironically, it's not that McCain and HRC are having trouble; The enthusiasm is, quite simply, with others.
(Read more on the detailed numbers - carryover, primary, general election, and cash on hand - as reported by The Hotline On Call. Those numbers will tell the complete tale and prospects for raising cash in the coming months).
Therein lies the problem. The MSM is eager to build up other campaigns and follow new story lines - and with both the Obama and Edwards camps in a fighting mood - expect a shift in momemtum towards their side. And what if Al Gore and Wes Clark jump into the race later this year?
The real story behind all the gaudy cash numbers is that there has been no knowkout blow thrown by Hillary Clinton.
This 2008 Democratic Race is wide open.