A New Online Fundraising Record on the Horizon

By Jose Antonio Vargas
At the rate that Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton are raising money on the Internet, February is poised to see a record in online fundraising.

It's a tit-for-tat of sorts for the dueling Democrats, with Obama maintaining an edge over Clinton. On Feb. 1, sources inside the Obama campaign told The Trail that the Illinois senator raised $28 million online in January -- a stunning amount given that Howard Dean raised $27 million online during his whole campaign. Then, on Saturday, three days after Clinton announced that she had lent her cash-strapped campaign $5 million, aides to the New York senator reported that she had amassed more than $9 million online from over 95,000 supporters since Super Tuesday. Not to be outdone, Obama's campaign e-mailed reporters hours later to emphasize that it was still on top. "We've raised well more than the Clinton campaign this month," wrote Obama spokesman Bill Burton. "More than 350,000 donors have contributed to our campaign just this year."

If the Obama campaign can maintain this fundraising pace -- online donations poured in at the rate of more than $500,000 an hour after his overwhelming victory in South Carolina -- it's likely that Obama will raise upwards of $30 million online this month.