Cicero: "The sinews of elections... are infinite money"

Apologies to the Roman thinker for misquoting him in the title.  However substituting "war" for "elections" is highly appropriate in terms of thinking about where the lead candidates for the US 2008 election are at financially.  This is shortly after news that Hilary Clinton is adding $5 million of her own money to her campaign and her staff are going without money this month.

The Federal Election Commission records campaign fundraising data, namely amounts raised and spent.  The latest data as at 31 December 2007 is as follows:

Democrats

Hilary Clinton  Raised: $118.3m Spent: $80.3m Retained: $38m

Barack Obama Raised: $103.8m Spent: $85.2m Retained: $18.6m

Comment: Obama, lacking the national name recognition of Clinton early in the campaign has had to invest more to put his name about.

Republicans

John McCain Raised: $42.0m Spent: $39.1m Retained: $2.9m

Mitt Romney Raised: $90.1m Spent: $87.6m Retained: $2.5m

Mike Huckabee Raised: $8.9m Spent: $7.1m Retained: $1.8m

Comment: Romney did an amazing fundraising job in a time when the Republicans are down-at-heel.  However when looking at current standings in terms of electoral votes has achieved a very poor "bang-for-the-buck".