With the Obama campaign having raised over $40 million in the month of March, despite setbacks in Texas and Ohio, as well as the controversy surrounding remarks by Obama's former spiritual guide, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Clinton campaign strategists Mark Penn and Harold Ickes faxed to CNN their responses.
Said Penn,
February has fewer days than March. Obama raised less money in March than he did in February. You don't have to be a mathematical genius to figure out that his momentum has slowed. In fact, the Obama candidacy is clearly in decline if not in a complete and total free fall.
Ickes had this to say,
This is just not relevant: which candidate can raise more money for the primary is not indicative of which candidate can raise more money for the general election. This blatant pro-Obama spin of the underlying financial reality of each campaign is unacceptable, and just another sign of the extent to which reality is "in the tank" for Obama.
On the campaign trail in PA, Senator Clinton, in a response that seemed directed as much to superdelegates as to the public at large, had this to say,
I'm still inevitable, you know. Keep that in mind.
Asked for a response, Senator Obama, on the trail in Indiana, reached into his pocket and flashed an $11.5 million wad of campaign cash.
"Ah, it's nothing really," he said, "this is just my campaign 'walking around' money."