The July totals for fundraising are now in. John McCain reported raising $27 million over the course of the month. Barack Obama raised more than $51 million.
The fundraising totals for the RNC and DNC are a lot more even, though: $26 million and $27.7 million respectively.
Obama also managed to pass 2 million donors last month.

The U.S. Senate still files all disclosures on paper. The process costs taxpayers $250,000 every year and creates a blind spot in campaign contributions: during the four to six weeks it takes to process paper disclosure forms, the public does not know who has contributed to a given candidate’s campaign. That blind spot occurs just before elections, limiting the information’s impact on an election.
There have been several attempts to rectify the matter since 2003, but none as serious as the current push to pass S.223. S.223 would require Senate candidates to file electronically, providing for both faster and cheaper processing. …read more

More than one half of John McCain’s campaign warchest is coming from fundraisers who ‘bundle’ donations. $75.6 million was brought McCain’s campaign by about 500 people. Those figures are through June — July fundraising information has not been released yet.
Barack Obama, in contrast, relied on about 500 fundraisers to bundle donations, as well. But Obama’s bundlers brought in only a fifth of the donations that he has collected — a little more than $50 million.
If you look at the list of McCain’s top fundraisers, nearly a fifth of those 500 people are lobbyists (or work for lobbying firms). A lot …read more

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Over the weekend, Politico ran a great run down on 5 presidential campaign cash myths. I found one particularly interesting: the fact that lobbyists and PAC aren’t exactly big spenders in presidential campaigns despite all claims to the contrary.
Obama has encouraged this idea to tout his refusal to accept
contributions from federal lobbyists and political action committees
and criticize McCain’s unwillingness to follow suit.
But lobbyists and PACs historically have not been major contributors to
presidential campaigns, and this cycle has been no different.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, McCain through May had …read more

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The Supreme Court has been busy this week. One of the decisions they released was an overturn of the ‘Millionaires’ Amendment’ — a piece of campaign legislation law stating that the opponents of candidates self-financing their runs can accept more donations.
Jack Davis, a 2006 congressional candidate in New York, brought the suit to the Supreme Court, after he lost the race. Davis had spent over $2 million of his own funds to finance his run, but the Millionaires’ Amendment kicked in and his opponent was able to out-fundraise him. The amendment was originally written in …read more

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On the tail of the news of Hillary Clinton’s less than spectacular win in Indiana last night and her outright loss in North Carolina comes the news that Clinton loaned even more money to her campaign last month. On top of the $5 million Clinton lent her campaign in January, she transferred an additional $6.425 million over to her campaign in April and May.
It’s becoming a question of good money after bad. Clinton didn’t pull off the spectacular win she predicted last night, and plenty of people just …read more

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Just a week ago, I wrote about Hillary Clinton’s big deficit. The story of this past weekend just drives home the point that her campaign is on poor financial footing. To put it plainly, Clinton hasn’t been paying off her campaign debts. Instead, she’s been spending money on media buys and other attempts to win just a few votes.
I’m all in favor of connecting with as many voters as possible during a campaign, but I think that such a significant debt —$8.7 million owed to a wide variety of vendors …read more

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One word that always gets thrown around during campaign season is “deficit.” There’s a pretty general consensus that deficits are bad — just like debts in general. I certainly can’t think of a candidate who’s promised to raise deficits after all.
I’m concerned, though, about Hillary Clinton’s willingness to spend her campaign into her own personal little deficit — totaling $8,733,609 at the end of February.
Voters have to ask how much of a deficit is Clinton is willing to run up as President if she lets her own campaign get in …read more

Remember those bad old days when John McCain was broke and barely holding on? You know, the middle of 2007? Well, during his little financial crisis, McCain signed up for public financing in order to stay afloat. It came in handy — John McCain looks like the anointed Republican nominee despite some lingering policy issues with the right. These days, he’s doing well enough that he’s getting plenty of monetary support, to the point that he’s bumping up against legal limits imposed by that public money McCain accepted not so long ago.
The FEC wants to have some words with the …read more

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This is our last Financial Profile Friday of a single candidate for the primaries. We’ve covered everybody else in the race, although we’ll continue to touch base with how campaigns are spending money. As the primaries draw nearer, the FEC has candidates reporting on a monthly basis, rather than a quarterly basis, so we’ll have more information to look at.
Mike Huckabee is turning into the little train that could — despite lagging in funding from the start, he’s still in the race. …read more