Patrick Ruffini, who has been doing a pretty good job of tracking the numbers with Obama's campaign, now suggests that Barack's February fundraising total might top $70 million. But a closer look at his numbers suggests that the true figure might be even higher than stratospheric: an unbelievable $80 million -- or even more -- might be in the ballpark for a 29-day month.
Here's the scoop. According to Ruffini, Obama's "contributor counter" for the year stood at 256,000 on January 31. The same counter stood at 1,033,525 at noon on March 2nd. So Obama attracted 777,525 contributors in the 31 days between those timestamps, for an average of 25,081 per day. In the 29 days of February, that would imply a total of 727,362 contributors.
Ruffini also reminds us that in a recent debate, Obama let slip that his average donation was $109. Since this is a bit down from the January average of $125, that probably means the $109 figure is non-January -- i.e., a February average.
Now do the math: $109 x 727,362 = $79.3 million.
You heard it here first.
If the $125 average from January were matched, the total would be (I can hardly believe I'm writing this) $90.9 million. Now that's not a lock, obviously, but figures in the $80 million range are not out of the question. And that's a big, big number: once again, Obama would have more than doubled Clinton's monthly fundraising. And once again, Obama alone would have raised more in a month than the entire Republican field combined.
Most likely, the campaign will not release this figure until at least March 4, to avoid giving people a feeling that it's over before it's really over. Can you imagine the impact if Obama releases the figure on March 4 right about when the polls close and network coverage is at its peak? Even if Hillary wins Ohio and Rhode Island, she would look like a big loser for the night.
That hiss you hear is the air coming out of the Clinton balloon.
UPDATE 3-6-08:
Well, we got the number of contributors right on the nose, but not much else. The official report out today shows that in February, Obama had 727,972 contributors (vs. 727,362 we projected).
However, the total haul was $55 million, so the average contribution was $75.55, well short of the $109 figure he quoted in the debate.