Politics

Dough! Campaign Fundraising Records Fall

April 4, 2007 / 11:11 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Presidential hopefuls in both parties have obliterated the old first-quarter fundraising records.

Republican Mitt Romney raked in $23 million to join Democrat Hillary Clinton in the $20 million-plus club. The New York senator collected $26 million. The also-rans in the money race also reported eye-popping totals.

On the Republican side, frontrunner Rudy Giuliani collected $15 million, and Sen. John McCain took in $12.5 million.

Among Democrats, John Edwards collected $14 million. That's double what the North Carolina Democrat raised in the same time period in his last run for the White House.

Clinton's main rival, Sen. Barack Obama, has yet to report his first-quarter total, but some political analysts predict Obama will also join the $20 million club.

Cash wasn't always king, reports CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger. But the top candidates have opted out of the public financing system, so they can raise as much money as they want. And they'll need it. The last time the presidential race was this wide open, with no incumbent president or vice president running, was 1952.

To understand just how awash in cash the class of 2008 is, it's only necessary to look at the previous first-quarter fundraising records. Republican Phil Gramm of Texas and Democrat Al Gore of Tennessee held the previous high-water marks: $8.7 million for Gramm in 1995 and $8.9 million for Gore in 1995.

The fundraising totals are a crucial test for the candidates and indicate whose campaign is strongest less than a year before the first primary votes are cast. The fundraising deadline for the January through March period was Saturday, with financial reports due April 15.

Democrat Clinton swelled her campaign war chest by transferring an additional $10 million from her Senate fundraising account, aides said. That brought her to $36 million. The New York senator's total included $4.2 million raised through the Internet.

Experts have predicted this will be the first $1 billion presidential contest, reports CBS News correspondent Joie Chen. Outrageous as it sounds, it looks like they're right.

Nineteen months ahead of Election Day, candidates aren't just running for president, adds Chen. They are running for the money.

Clinton, for example, hit three fundraisers in the 24 hours before Saturday's midnight deadline. Giuliani pressed donor flesh just about every day for the last two weeks.

Other candidates reporting first-quarter totals included:

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, said he had raised $6 million and had more than $5 million cash on hand.

Aides to Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut said he raised more than $4 million and transferred nearly $5 million from his Senate campaign, for a total of $9 million in receipts and $7.5 million cash on hand.

Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware lagged behind, with his staff reporting that he had total receipts of nearly $4 million, nearly half of which was transferred from his Senate campaign account.

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, a conservative darling but long-shot GOP candidate, also lagged far behind, reporting receipts of less than $2 million, including a $575,000 transfer from his Senate campaign account.