for several months, including months where Obama (and Hillary) were breaking fundraising records.  I don't find the "bad economy" explanation very plausible.

Could high gas prices be a plot to dry up Obama's funding? My tinfoil hat is at the cleaners, so I'm not sure.

And I'm no grammer cop (probably the worst at it on the blog), but even I know you shouldn't say, "There's (there is) varying reports," and, "there's (there is) a couple explanations."

Front page diarists have to try harder.

I ended up giving a couple of hundred bucks overall during the primaries, and I'd love to be able to give a lot more for the GE. But last month all I could do to help was buy another $30 t-shirt.

Any iPhone, 3G or not, is absolutely out of the question.

so who knows.

Perhaps Obama pulled in >$50 and that WSJ article which his a GOP rag just pulled out the $30 million out of their ass and made it up.

If the Obama campaign only hauled in $30 million than I think they would have released their numbers today since the WSJ published an article stating that.

But Politico is even saying that they never publish Obama numbers for the month until they get it from the campaign for they have been way off before.

The best explanation I've heard is that it's just not as heated as it was during the primaries - with another vote just around the corner I felt a whip on my back to donate more that I'm just not feeling right now.

There may be ideological reasons to - I'm sure they don't help - but the drop in small donations doesn't correlate with any political moves by Obama.  People gave right after he locked up the nomination and then it just dried up.

The primaries are over and we are not yet in the general election season, so their is a lull in giving. Also, Obama is no longer a new face, he must now rely on his great organizational skills to keep the fundraising up.

Great post.  The one danger of relying on small
donors is the economic downturn.  Much of his donor base are younger voters who don't make a lot of money.  Gas prices are sefinitely a factor.

I don't think Obama's pivot to the center will be a factor until this month.  At least he still outraised McCain for the month (that's the talking point); though the RNC's massive money machine ensures a GOP dollar edge in this election.

Right after Obama won the nomination I got a call from a fundraiser, and he explained to me that McBush was raising lots of money and that the Obama campaign needed to boost their fundraising, and asked me to pledge money, and I did.  I assumed that they did really good on those days they were making phone calls.  This was before FISA.  So, I would bet that the Obama campaign did really good the first couple of weeks in June.  Also, the Obama campaign had more big donor fundraisers in June than in May or April.  If small donor funds went down, the big money donors went up.  So, I would say that Obama's campaign should have at least taken in $40 million or more.

The outpouring of donations to Hillary and Barack may have lulled some into complacency that regular folk, and unions, had finally lanced the huge advanatage that big money has had in political campaigns at least for the past 30 years.

At the end of the day McCain can get his free money from the FEC and then tap the super rich to max out to the RNC, to state and other committees and then do unlimited giving to 527s.  If you are WalMart heirs sitting on more than $120 billion in assets, even a $1 billion would be a reasonable amount to spend to elect politicians who reduce taxes on high wage earners and investment income and on estates.

So the money juggernaut is warming up to swamp the American political process once again this fall.  The need to escalate giving for Democrats is paramount or else we will be swamped.  We cannot count on the rich realizing how bad McCain and the remaining Republicans in the Congress are, not from a policy perspective, but just from campaigning perspective.   Not only do they think they have the money to perform complete make-overs on these political animals (didn't want to say pigs) but they directly or indirectly own most media outlets.  

The Wall Street Journal report of our fundraising numbers is way off the mark. It appears that after 18 months, some in the press still haven't realized that anyone who is talking about numbers doesn't know what our numbers are.

I think it's a whole host of issues, but no one is talking about the economy. I think it has very little to do with his move to the center. I think it's partially because he is polling well and everyone jokes about how much money he has. Why bother donating to a sure thing? I argued a number of times with people that his numbers weren't as good as they seemed. The RNC has a huge cash advantage and talking about how Obama is rolling is cash will only force struggling people to hold on to their money.

a lot of money during the primaries from last january until march or so when i maxed out. Now i am broke as a dog.

OK, not really.  But I agree with the commenter above who suggests that this explanation is problematic because the economy has been had this whole time.  I would counter that idea by suggesting that it's possible that the bad economy has been made salient for people in the last couple months as a result a rash of stories about consumer price increases that actually began happening a while ago.

But on the whole I think Josh is largely right.  The primary campaign lasted five months from the first vote to the last; by contrast, we are just under four months away from general votes being cast.  We're in a lull, and there's nothing going right now to excite people's wallets open.

I actually agree with Josh Marshall's point and wrote a diary about it yesterday. There have been no big speeches or milestones in the form of primaries that would push people to make donations.

Also, McCain had a few months to rev up the fundraising machine. And the divided Democratic party, with many of the "fat cats" former Clinton supporters, surely doesn't help.

Does he really need more money right now?  

I think giving to downticket races, which are just as important, could be on people's minds as well.  

It's Summer folks... going to break 100 here in Denver...people tend to gear down.
Have the millions of Clinton supporters retired her debt?
Many are involved with local campaigns in regard to effort and $$

Just 30$? A. How much did McSame bring in June? And. 2. Since when did bringing in 30 MILLION DOLLARS$$$ in one month's time become a failure?

There were also a number of national and international disasters recently, from Midwest flooding to Burmese typhoons to Chinese earthquakes. Perhaps Obama's small donors donated to those instead?

Interesting. I am getting a 3g iphone. I'm not giving money to Obama - anything he was getting is going to the ACLU, because they're going to sue to try to block FISA. For me, liberty comes first. I might - MIGHT - have forgiven him not taking an extremely strong stand and trying to rally support to defeat it. But I won't forgive him going back on supporting a filibuster, and I sure as hell won't forgive him for voting for it.

He's better than McCain, and he'll have my vote - but the ACLU gets my cash.

Personally, my $15 contribution for June was based solely on my desire to get the car magnet.  Otherwise, I would have given nothing.

Under normal circumstances, I would have given what I had been in the months before: about $100 - 150.  Why not?  Four letters: FISA.

Will I re-up later?  Probably.  But I don't mind, at this point, hitting the campaign where it hurts--in their pocketbook.

And I hope someone notices this entry.