Saturday, June 07, 2008

Money, money, money

From the MoJo blog, a few facts about the Obama cha-ching factor:

If each of Obama's donors gave him a modest $250, he'd have $375 million to spend during the two-month general election sprint. That’s $186 million a month; $47 million a week.

During the same September to Nov. 4th period, McCain will have about $85 million to spend since he has decided to take taxpayer money to help finance his campaign activities.

[snip]

Obama has more than 1.5 million donors; McCain has a few hundred thousand. If just a million of Obama’s donors sent him the maximum donation, $2,300, he could raise $2.3 billion.

What does it mean? MoJo concluded:

Two quick observations: (1) Obama is going to be able to use that money to make random red states like Kansas and Idaho competitive enough that McCain has to put time, energy, and money into winning them. That's a huge advantage.

Maybe, but whether Obama can win red states... well, I'm a skeptic. But here's the real nugget, the prize for Democrats:

(2) Obama could have enough money to finance every Democratic congressional race in the country. Certainly every key Senate race. He could essentially buy himself a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority in the Senate.

Do I need to spell out why the DNC favored Obama and threw Hillary under the bus? Even if McCain wins, a super majority in the House and Senate is a coup.