· Boost to challenger on eve of crucial policy speech
· Files show senator raising more cash than Hillary
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Tuesday April 17, 2007
The Guardian
Among Mr Obama's contributors were a dozen former fundraisers for Bill Clinton and at least four members of his administration.
The boost to Mr Obama's campaign came on the eve of a foreign affairs speech in Chicago today in which he will seek to blunt criticism that he is all sizzle and no beef, lacking detailed policies.
All the presidential candidates had to present a detailed breakdown of funds raised in the first three months of the year to a federal election body by midnight on Sunday. Although rough totals of money raised were released a fortnight ago, the details, including spending and individual donations, had not been available.The defectors include Alan Solomont, who was in charge of party finances during the Clinton administration and was close enough to the Clintons to be an overnight guest at the White House. He told Newsweek: "People are ready for a new generation, a new face and a new voice."
Former members of the Clinton administration now supporting Mr Obama include James Rubin, Reed Hundt, Michael Froman, Brian Mathis and Greg Craig. Mr Obama raised almost twice as much as Mrs Clinton from one of the leading Democratic funders, Goldman Sachs: $94,450 (£47,250). Leonore Blitz, who raised about $250,000 for Mrs Clinton's senate race, said she was supporting both Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama.
Today's speech is crucial for Mr Obama, who has only been a senator for two years and whose campaign speeches have tended to be dominated by lofty appeals to idealism and to be short on policy detail. By contrast, Mrs Clinton has spent much of her time as a senator focusing on the detail of foreign and defence policy.
Mr Obama is committed to an early withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But he is vague about other areas of foreign policy, other than to hint at tough action against Iran over its suspected nuclear weapons programme and a more balanced US approach to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
He was prescient enough to oppose the Iraq war, predicting the problems the US is now facing, while Mrs Clinton voted in the senate in favour, which has left her facing hostility from some Democrats.
Although Mrs Clinton is still ahead in the polls to secure the Democratic nomination, the figures show Mr Obama, in fact, raised more than she did in the first three months of the year. When the rough funding totals were released a fortnight ago it appeared Mrs Clinton had raised more. But Mr Obama raised $24.8m in donations for the Democratic primary contests, which begin in January, whereas Mrs Clinton reported $18.2m.
The third-placed Democratic candidate, John Edwards, raised $13m for the primaries. On the Republican side, Mitt Romney was confirmed as the most successful fundraiser and the position of John McCain, who had long been the frontrunner in the polls, turned out to be more parlous than suggested a fortnight ago, partly because of his spending. He has $5m in the bank, half of that of rivals Mr Romney and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the Washington-based thinktank Centre for Responsive Politics, said yesterday: "On the Democratic side Clinton and Obama are pretty well matched. On the Republican side Romney is a clear leader and McCain has a lot of reasons to be worried."
The geographical breakdown of figures show that Mr Obama's biggest donor state was California, providing him with $4.1m, followed by his home state, Illinois, with $3.8m. He raised $2.7m in New York, a surprisingly large total for the state that Mrs Clinton represents in the senate.
By contrast, Mrs Clinton only raised $378,000 in Illinois. She raised $5m in California, and $3.5 m in Washington DC. Mr Obama, who refuses money from lobbyists and has returned money received from them, raised only $876,000 in DC.
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