Obama raised more than $100 million in September, according to the NYT

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Wow, J. J. STILL can't figure out the meaning of Vorlon's 80% comment.

HA!  Why does this not surprise me?  Some people have a natural aversion to understanding facts and figures.

The Vorlon actually said:

A couple points...

Firstly, RNC money is not quite as good as campaign mopmey.. there are some restrictions - if you are clever you can mostly get around those, but not completelyt.

I would say an RNC dollar is worth maybe $0.80 versus an actual hard dollar in the campaugns coffers.

Secondly, Democratic candidates at the House and Senate level are (generally speaking) in better shape than their GOP rivals, a lot of this (GOTV for example) money will also help Obama.

The value of the RNC and DNC money is about 80% of that in the campaign.  It is a rough figure, but that that is in the estimate.

Conversely, yes there are other expenditures out there on both sides, that I'm not counting.

It still doesn't really explain why it wasn't released much sooner.

Yeah, they're totally right.  You don't understand what The Vorlon is saying here.  The Vorlon did not say that 80% of the committee funds are going to the Presidential race.  He said that, hypothetically, even if the committees wanted to spend 100% of their funds in the Presidential race, those funds would only be worth $0.80 on the $1 compared to direct contributions to McCain and Obama.  The funds don't convert 1:1 over from the committee fund to Presidential spending.  Obviously, neither committee is going to spend 100% of their funds in the Presidential race.  Whatever amount (much lower than 100%) they decide on will only be, according to The Vorlon, 80% as effective as money directly in McCain's or Obama's warchest.  When you take into account that the DSCC and the DCCC are in much better shape financially this election cycle than the NRSC and the NRCC, and that the Republicans are in trouble in so many places, it stands to reason that the RNC will be forced to use a much higher amount of their funds to bail out the NRSC and the NRCC than the DNC will have to with the DSCC and the DCCC.  In other words, you're missing two critical figures in your calculations:  the actual amount that the RNC and DNC plan to spend in the Presidential race from now until Election Day.

Obviously, we don't know what those two figures are, but the signs are good that Obama will be able to swamp McCain in spending, while the RNC is busy bailing out vulnerable Senate and House members.

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I looked at the last cycle and only about 10% went to the other committees, from both parties.  The bulk gets spend on the presidential races (or on "Party Building" which indirectly affects the presidential races).

You looked at one election cycle and claim a trend?  How well off were the DSSC and DCCC compared to the NRSC and NRCC in 2004?  How well off were Kerry:Bush compared to Obama:McCain?  These ratios were way different, so why would you expect  Presidential:Congressional spending to be even roughly equal between 2004 and 2008?

[Firefly]

I looked at the last cycle and only about 10% went to the other committees, from both parties.  The bulk gets spend on the presidential races (or on "Party Building" which indirectly affects the presidential races).

You looked at one election cycle and claim a trend?  How well off were the DSSC and DCCC compared to the NRSC and NRCC in 2004?  How well off were Kerry:Bush compared to Obama:McCain?  These ratios were way different, so why would you expect  Presidential:Congressional spending to be even roughly equal between 2004 and 2008?

Yes, I looked at both parties in one election.  [/i]Both[/i] parties congressional committees have been borrowing in this cycle; I got a call from the Democratic congressional committee this morning, emphasizing how much they were borrowing.

Again, you're ignoring a very important piece of the puzzle.  How much did each have/raise besides what they borrowed.  Last time I saw the numbers, DSCC and DCCC were way ahead of NRSC and NRCC

[Firefly]

I looked at the last cycle and only about 10% went to the other committees, from both parties.  The bulk gets spend on the presidential races (or on "Party Building" which indirectly affects the presidential races).

You looked at one election cycle and claim a trend?  How well off were the DSSC and DCCC compared to the NRSC and NRCC in 2004?  How well off were Kerry:Bush compared to Obama:McCain?  These ratios were way different, so why would you expect  Presidential:Congressional spending to be even roughly equal between 2004 and 2008?

Yes, I looked at both parties in one election.  [/i]Both[/i] parties congressional committees have been borrowing in this cycle; I got a call from the Democratic congressional committee this morning, emphasizing how much they were borrowing.

Again, you're ignoring a very important piece of the puzzle.  How much did each have/raise besides what they borrowed.  Last time I saw the numbers, DSCC and DCCC were way ahead of NRSC and NRCC

The senate committee was close and most candidates have there own campaign committees.  The House committees were not.

I'm not sure what you consider close, but these are the latest numbers:

DSCC
Total Raised 3rd Q: $24 million
Total Raised in September: $14.4 million
Total Raised this cycle: $117.3 million
Cash on Hand: $26.3 million

NRSC
Total Raised 3rd Q: $15.5 million
Total Raised in September: $6.6 million
Total Raised this cycle: $74.3 million
Cash on Hand: $17.4 million

As you can see, the DSCC raised over twice as much as the NRSC in September, and they've raised almost $40 million more this election cycle.  The DSCC has a 3:2 CoH advantage over the NRSC.  If they want to compete, they're going to need help from the RNC.  The fact that most candidates have their own campaign committees is irrelevant because it applies to both sides.  Unless of course you have some evidence that individual Republican Senators are out-raising individual Democratic Senators...

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You really can't go on "raised in September."  COH is $9 million apart, not a lot.  Just to make double parity, it's just over the RNC's COH at the start of the month.

You can go on "raised in September."  You can go on "raised in the 3rd quarter."  You can go on "raised this election cycle."  Any way you look at it the DSCC has solidly outperformed the NRSC in fundraising.  $9 million is over half the NRSC's CoH.  It's $9 million that the RNC will have to make up if they want their Senate candidates to stay competitive in campaign spending.  It's $9 million the RNC won't be able to spend helping out McCain when they're already in the hole compared to Obama.  It's also $9 million the RNC won't be able to use propping up the NRCC, which is even worse shape.  And that's just the cash disparity as of October 1st.  Considering the trend in fundraising so far, the DSCC is likely to outperform the NRSC again in October, which is increasing the disparity as we speak (or type).

[Firefly]

You really can't go on "raised in September."  COH is $9 million apart, not a lot.  Just to make double parity, it's just over the RNC's COH at the start of the month.

You can go on "raised in September."  You can go on "raised in the 3rd quarter."  You can go on "raised this election cycle."  Any way you look at it the DSCC has solidly outperformed the NRSC in fundraising.  $9 million is over half the NRSC's CoH.  It's $9 million that the RNC will have to make up if they want their Senate candidates to stay competitive in campaign spending.  It's $9 million the RNC won't be able to spend helping out McCain when they're already in the hole compared to Obama.  It's also $9 million the RNC won't be able to use propping up the NRCC, which is even worse shape.  And that's just the cash disparity as of October 1st.  Considering the trend in fundraising so far, the DSCC is likely to outperform the NRSC again in October, which is increasing the disparity as we speak (or type).

You are making an assumption that RNC will primarily fund Senate candidates.  They don't.

Uh, no, I didn't, but if the NRSC is at least $9 million behind the DSCC (which they are), and assuming that fundraising among individual Senators averages out as roughly equal on both sides (since we don't know all of the actual numbers there), the RNC will have to make up the difference or suffer the consequences of their vulnerable Senate candidates getting outspent in the final weeks.

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It's 640 million I think now.  (604 by October 1st. 36 million first two weeks of October)

Do you think it was a good idea of rhim to opt out of public financing, then?

It was a gamble, but it paid off.

About time you admitted that.

I said that from the start, that it could pay off.  It's like Palin.  We're at the point where she might pay off, but she might not.

I think we're well past that point.  Palin has been dragging McCain down and is going to cost him dearly a week from Tuesday.