The $52 million the Obama campaign raised in June is a good deal more than John McCain's $22 million, and much better than the $30 million number reported earlier in the week, which an Obama bundler had advised me was very low.

But the relevant bar is really whether it’s enough to fund the 50-state, mega-scale campaign Obama is running, and enough, compared with what McCain has, to make up for the loss of public financing.

At least in the opinion of one Democratic consultant I spoke to today, it is.

The consultant, speaking on background, said the total amount of money at Obama's disposal, when combined with the D.  read more »

After Michelle Obama delivered a measured speech to gay and lesbian leaders at a Manhattan fund-raiser last night, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean abandoned his prepared remarks in favor of some more pointed observations.

“ I frankly don’t believe the John McCain of 2000 would even consider voting for the John McCain of 2008, I really don’t,” said Dean.

“Saddest of all," Dean added, "John McCain was against torture until he supported the president’s veto of the Democrats anti-water-boarding bill. This is a guy who appears not to have principles. And if you don’t have principles when you are president, you shouldn’t be president.  read more »

Not everyone in the crowd at the Waldorf Astoria last night, where Michelle Obama addressed gay activists at a fund-raiser for the Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council of the Democratic National Committee, was bowled over by her talk of “robust civil unions,” even as she received a generally warm response for the rest of her speech.

Obama, who followed New York first lady Michelle Paterson and took the stage to the theme song “Michelle, My Belle,” mostly spoke about how her husband would continue to hold onto his principles through the campaign. She made no explicit mention of his calculated decision to absorb a big editorial hit by opting out of the public financing system, except to say how happy she was about the large number of small donors the campaign had attracted.  read more »

Howard Dean was supposed to be finished back in January 2004, when his once-overpowering presidential campaign collapsed in the cornfields of Iowa – and when he let out a scream that made him as much laughingstock as loser.

Sure, the conventional wisdom went, he’d still have a loud voice in the national political dialogue. Even in defeat, Dean retained the passionate loyalty of much of the Democratic grass roots, the activists who’d grown irate with the timidity the acquiescence of their party’s Washington establishment to so much of the Bush agenda. But, as the ’04 primary results showed, the grass roots alone wasn’t enough to beat the establishment.  read more »

A little bit like the DNC's "McCain Versus McCain," here's a new Web ad from the Republican campaign using Barack Obama's statements about public financing against him.

Like some of McCain's previous spots, this one is also trippy.

Superdelegates are generally seen as seasoned elected officials or as the kind of party apparatchiks whose natural habitat is the figurative smoke-filled room.

Not everyone fits the stereotype. Among those who will help decide the Democratic contest is a 51-year-old office administrator and piano teacher in Dublin, Ireland, who has not lived in the U.S. for more than two decades and follows the race in large part through coverage in the Irish and British media.
Liv Gibbons, a native of Los Angeles, will cast her vote at her party’s convention in Denver for Barack Obama.  read more »

Does Harold Ickes complicate Hillary Clinton’s appeals to Puerto Rican superdelegates?

Francisco Domenech, a superdelegate supporting Hillary Clinton in Puerto Rico, thinks that Ickes, her point-man on the wrangling of superdelegates, may find himself having to explain his work on behalf of one side of the flammable issue of Puerto Rico's national status.

Domenech, who supports statehood for Puerto Rico, pointed out that the three remaining undecided superdelegates in Puerto Rico are all proponents of maintaining commonwealth status. Ickes, who became a lobbyist after working at President Bill Clinton's deputy chief of staff, was an adviser to former Governor Pedro Rossello in the battle for statehood.  read more »

In an interview taped yesterday for Inside City Hall, Howard Dean expressed opposition to a brokered convention if the Democratic primary contests fail to produce a candidate with enough delegates to win the nomination.

Dean told Dominic Carter he thinks there will be a nominee by March or April, and if not, "we're going to have to get the candidates together and make some kind of an arrangement."

Transcript after the jump.  read more »

Full release after the jump.  read more »