Mitt Romney, of course, is (and looks) quite wealthy, and he raised a healthy $18.25 million for his campaign in the second quarter this year, far outpacing all of his GOP rivals (although Michele Bachmann hasn’t yet released her numbers). But everything’s relative. Romney may be the fund-raising superstar of the Republican primary, but President Obama just Crocodile Dundee’d him: That’s not a fund-raising haul. This is a fund-raising haul.
As his campaign manager Jim Messina announced in a web video this morning, President Obama raised $86 million in the second quarter between his own reelection account and his DNC-linked account. $86 million. The number 8, followed closely thereafter by the number 6.
Messina bragged that 552,462 donors contributed to the total, “more grassroots support at this point in the process than any campaign in political history.” He continued with the grassroots theme by pointing out that 98 percent of donations were $250 or less, and that the average donation was $69, “substantially lower” than the Obama campaign’s average donation in the 2008 election.
So, yeah. The passion for Obama might not be quite as intense as it was in 2008. “Yes we can!” has given way to “Doing the best we can, under the circumstances.” But Obama’s cup will still runneth over in 2012.
