Believe it or not, it wasn't too long ago when Team Obama bragged about their fundraising ability and gloated that they were going to out-raise whoever the Republican nominee would be. But now that Mitt Romney has raised more than $100 Million in June, after out-raising Obama handsomely in May, money in politics is just bad. Bad, bad, bad I tell you!
As for Romney's haul, let's see how the Seattle Times reported John McCain's June, 2008 fundraising "haul":
Republican presidential candidate John McCain raised more than $22 million in June, his best fundraising performance of the year, and ended the month with nearly $27 million cash on hand.... [while] The Republican National Committee, which has been raising money jointly with McCain, collected nearly $26 million in June
Ooph! Needless to say, it is not 2008 anymore.
But back to Obama and the Democrats. First, let's not forget that Obama became the first major nominee to ever opt out of public financing in 2008, despite years of advocating the importance of it. He also promised to accept public financing prior to the campaign. But, instead, Obama saw that he could out-raise and spend John McCain by a 2-1 margin by forgoing public financing and figured it would be much more glorious to raise vast sums of money at will. Which is, of course, now evil.
Here's the general feel of the whining by Democrats on the evil Republican money machine. From President Obama himself:
"You're going to have more money spent in this election than ever before by the other side on negative ads and they're message will be simple. They will say 'the economy is bad and it's Obama's fault... And because times are tough and because they are spending these ungodly sums, it's going to be close."
So, let's break this down:
1) Ungodly sums of money: After breaking his 2008 promise to use the virtuous public financing system, Obama went on to out-raise John McCain $745 Million to $368 Million and out spent McCain $730 Million to $333 Million. So if you double John McCain's spending, he would have still spent roughly $60 Million less than Obama. Wait, Obama only won 52.9% of the vote with those ungodly sums?
2) "Negative Ads": I can't even watch an episode of Jeopardy without seeing at least 3 negative ads falsely attacking Mitt Romney's Bain capital record. And I am also pretty sure that Obama spent all of 2008 (and heck, must of 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012) yelling "it's Bush's fault!" at every turn of the non-improving economy.
3) 2012 Money So far: Before Obama get's too hopped up on complaining about money, it's also important to note that through May 2012, Obama had raised $261 Million and spent $231 Million while Romney had raised just $121 Million and spent $107 Million. So let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, Mr. President.
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