Clark Collects a Large Sum in a Short Time

[Freddie Stubbs]

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 — Gen. Wesley K. Clark has gathered $750,000 in unsolicited contributions since Thursday, when he announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, his campaign aides said today.

General Clark is in a race against the clock: the other nine candidates, who have been collecting money for a year, will file their third-quarter reports on Sept. 30. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts had led the fund-raising as of the last filing, on June 30, with $16 million, but Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, is expected to have surged ahead, having raised $10 million so far in this quarter alone.

On top of that, Dr. Dean has set a new goal of collecting $5 million in the next 10 days.

For General Clark, the ability to collect substantial money quickly will be an important marker for his incipient candidacy. Aides said they had sent e-mail messages to people who had pledged a total of $1.9 million through Draft Clark Web sites.

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/22/politics/campaigns/22CLAR.html

[KaraokeKarlton]

1. Not to rain on Clark's parade

But this isn't new. There is $1 million in pledged support for Clark that the Draft Clark people pulled together. Clearly many of those people have sent in their pledged support. I think he's probably going to do just fine, but this really isn't a huge deal since he had this $1 million commitment from his supporters already.

[CMT]

2. I don't worry about $$ for the General

he has a lot of the power structure of the Democratic party behind him including many past Clinton and Gore people and will get some important endorsements by some influential congressman and they will make sure that he has a well-funded campaign.