It still has quite a ways to go (and may not get there), but as of the end of March, 859.4M in contributions have been raked in by all presidential campaigns combined. Barack Obama (D-IL) is ahead of Hillary Clinton (D-NY) in total receipts, while John McCain (R-AZ) is not yet the top Republican recipient.
Website opensecrets.org takes a look at March for the three candidates left standing. Obama picked up 41.1M and exited the month with 51.1M in cash on hand; Clinton picked up 20.1M and ended the month with 31.7M cash on hand; and McCain picked up 12.0M and ended with 11.6M cash on hand.
Overall contributions, as reported by the Federal Election Commission, favor Democratic candidates over Republicans 524.6M to 334.8M. Here are the totals for all candidates, remaining or sidelined: (1) Barack Obama (D-IL), 234.7M; (2) Hillary Clinton (D-NY), 189.1M; (3) Mitt Romney (R-MA), 104.8M; (4) John McCain (R-AZ), 80.6M; (5) Rudy Giuliani (R-NY), 57.9M; (6) John Edwards (D-NC), 43.1M; (7) Ron Paul (R-TX), 34.4M; (8) Bill Richardson (D-NM), 24.0M; (9) Fred Thompson (R-TN), 23.5M; (10) Chris Dodd (D-CT), 16.6M; (11) Mike Huckabee (R-AR), 16.1M; (12) Joe Biden (D-DE), 12.2M; (13) Tom Tancredo (R-CO), 8.0M; (14) Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), 4.4M; (15) Sam Brownback (R-KS), 4.2M; (16) Duncan Hunter (R-CA), 2.6M; (17) Tommy Thompson (R-WI), 1.2M; (18) John Cox (R-IL), 1.1M; (19) Mike Gravel (D-AK), 0.5M; and (20) Jim Gilmore (R-VA) 0.4M.
RBR/TVBR observation: Democrats are used to playing the campaign game with a smaller warchest than their friends from across the aisle. To all appearances that will not be the case this time around. At this early juncture McCain is matching up well with either Democratic candidate among prospective voters, but the persistent relative weakness of his fundraising has to be an area of concern. This will be particularly true if the Dems are able to effectively kiss and makeup once a winner emerges from the smoke and fire of this bruising endgame for the Democratic nomination.
