4Q Fundraising Numbers

Let's just call it an election right now, shall we -- or at least let's wait for the Democrats to choose their nominee and then save ourselves the sturm und drang of the rest of the election?

Just look at some of these numbers:

Hillary: $26.9 million
Obama: $22.8 million

And now the GOP:

McCain: $6.8 million
Huckabee: $9 million
Romney: $6.6 million

The GOP numbers here are just the money contributors gave to each campaign and doesn't include the (at least) $18 million Romney lent to his own campaign or the $19.7 million Ron Paul raised by himself.

Now think about the $32 million Obama raised just in January alone ...

Romney's finished, I don't care about the recent ad buy -- the only person willing to give his campaign any money these days is himself. (I haven't seen one solicitation for money for all the people in Cheddarsphere who have recently started pulling for Romney over McCain, even they aren't bothering to chip in.) McCain won't be able to raise money from the shrill far right who like to bitch about him being a "RINO."

I don't believe I'm saying this, but Freedom Eden finally got one right: this sounds a lot like defeatism to me ... a dirty word the GOP has been flinging at Democrats since, oh I don't know, March of 2003 ... (Which leads me to ask the obvious question: if Republicans are so defeatist in their attitudes about the American election, how can they be trusted to remain confident about the war in Iraq?)

This is going to be an expensive election, everyone knows that, but where are the Bush Pioneers and Rangers? What happened to the vaunted fund-raising machine the GOP developed over the last generation? With numbers this anemic it would appear as if it has just disappeared into thin air.

Here's the good news for the GOP: John McCain is probably the only candidate they can nominate who will fight on through the campaign no matter how depleted his funds are and how far behind in the polls he is. He proved that in the primaries. In fact, if you're so inclined to dip into the collective subconscious of the Republican party, I'd like to think that GOP voters know they're sending a lamb to slaughter this election and that they're picking someone who can do that with a show of honor and a good fight to the end. McCain, after all, has been through a lot worse.