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Obama's war chest bursting
01/07/2007 22:02 - (SA)
Washington - Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama has obliterated party fundraising records by raking in at least $32.5m in the last three months, outpacing his top rival Hillary Clinton.
Obama said the staggering figure, the latest huge fundraising windfall in the 2008 race, which is on pace to be the most expensive in history, was "just the beginning" of a movement to transform America.
Clinton's campaign said last week that she would raise around $27m in the three month accounting period which ended on Saturday, but admitted the Democratic front-runner would fail to top Obama's amount.
In the first quarter of 2007, Clinton pulled $26m into her war chest, a few hundred thousand dollars more than Obama.
Former senator John Edwards, who is struggling to keep pace with Clinton and Obama, who was expected to announce his final second-quarter figure later, was expected to come in just over $9m.
Individual donors are limited
Obama, a first-term Illinois Senator vying to become America's first black president, has astounded political observers by trumping the fundraising prowess of the Clinton machine, set up by former president Bill Clinton.
His campaign officials said his funds came from 154 000 individual donors in the last three months alone. More than a quarter of a million people have offered him cash so far this year.
He has now raised a total of $55.7m in funding for next year's primary and caucus nominating contests.
Omaha said: "We've built the largest grassroots campaign in history for this stage of a presidential race.
"We now have hundreds of thousands of Americans who are ready to demand health care for all, energy independence and an end to the war in Iraq."
Individual donors are limited to contributions of $2 000
for each phase of the campaign.
It is not clear how much of Clinton's $27m in receipts can be used for the primary clash alone.
Obama's haul is only just behind the more than $34m piled up by Republican President George W. Bush in the equivalent quarter of 2003, ahead of his 2004 re-election campaign.
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