Barack Obama held off for a days announcing his first quarter fundraising and his numbers have come as a surprise to some. It seems that Obama has given Hillary Clinton a run for the money. Good for him. I personally would like to see this race as competitive as possible. The idea that Hillary has been the presumptive nominee from the gate has not appealed to me.

Democrat Barack Obama raked in $25 million for his presidential bid in the first three months of 2007, placing him on a par with front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton and dashing her image as the party’s inevitable nominee.

The donations came from an eye-popping 100,000 donors, the campaign said in a statement Wednesday.

The figure was the latest evidence that Obama, a political newcomer who has served just two years in the Senate, has emerged as the most powerful new force in presidential politics this year. It also reinforced his status as a significant threat to Clinton, who’d hoped her own $26 million first quarter fundraising total would begin to squeeze her rivals out of contention.

Obama’s campaign reported that “the figure included at least $23.5 million that he can spend on the highly competitive primary race.”

The Clinton campaign has yet to disclose how much they can use for the primary verses money that is designated for the general election.

While Clinton has honed a vast national fundraising network through two Senate campaigns and her husband’s eight years as president, Obama launched his bid for the White House with a relatively small donor base concentrated largely in Illinois, his home state. But his early opposition to the Iraq war and voter excitement over his quest to be the first black president quickly fueled a powerful fundraising machine.

Since he formally declared his presidential campaign in February, Obama has been traveling the country with a focus on urban areas where he could build his momentum and bring in new donors. He attracted big-money Hollywood and Wall St. executives along with families who came out to his stops in places like Oklahoma that sometimes are neglected by other candidates.

Obama’s campaign also noted tht “more than half the donors contributed via the Internet for a total of $6.9 million.”

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