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Ed, makes an excellent point about the Obama campaign's burn rate and the cost of raising money.
Back when I managed campaigns , which seems eons ago, but was just a few years, 1/3 of a campaign's energy and 1/2 of the candidate's time was spent raising money.
In a lot of my campaigns the candidate would focus on what I called 'The Families.'
Which were literally families and groups who could bundle together $10,000 or more.
I, as the campaign manager, spent half my time working the next tier of $2,000 individual donors. The finance director did $1,000 and below, and his assistant did anything below $500.
And of course there were finance events, fundraisers, one-on-ones, etc.
But the big lesson of fundraising is that even very wealthy people have a tap-out level and, the real important part is that every dollar raised is a dollar that cannot be raised again.
Obama's campaign now finds itself in a position that it is becoming harder and harder to raise the money. After raking in millions, a lot of people are maxed or tapped.
Obama himself, like my candidates, only personally solicit a small group of people. For him these will be extremely wealthy people with a large circle they can tap and bundle.
But the time he spends working donors is time he cannot be out earning media, giving speeches, going over his speeches and policy issues and, most important of all, resting.
As the money gets harder to raise, the Sr. Campaign staff will have to spend more time concentrating on money, which means unless they are very disciplined, other things will slip like message and organization in key states.
The McCain campaign not only does not have to worry about money, but all those staffers whose energy was focused on finance are now freed up work on organization in key states.
A campaign is about people, money and time. McCain doesn't have to worry about money anymore. So it can now maximize time cultivating people who are the backbone of the organization efforts in Ohio, Virginia, Michigan, etc.
While Obama will be spending time between events calling donors, McCain will be calling key state, county and city organizers.
Votes win elections, not dollars raised.
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