All this talk about fund raising is based on a false premise.

[hedgehog]

In the past, candidates raised most of their money from the same pool of big donors, PACs or bundlers. If you didn't have their support, you were out of cash and out of the race. They tended to go with the early winners, which exaggerated the influence of New Hampshire and Iowa.

This year the donor pool has been expanded. A year ago, Clinton was viewed as a sure thing because she had the support of the traditional donor pool. The big news is that Obama and Edwards went outside that donor pool to bring in new donors. The internet makes it easy and cheap to line up a large enough number of small donors to finance a nationwide campaign.It doesn't matter who has the most money; what matters is who has enough money. I don't see Clinton, Obama or Edwards dropping out. In fact, I expect a barrage of tv ads from them all shortly after the first of the year.

I don't know what Richardson, Dodd and Biden will do. I figure Kucinich and Gravel will go the distance , too.