Now I have to admit, I am by no means a millionaire. Having a million dollars is in fact so far out of my perception I have an easier time imagining walking on the moon than ever having a million dollars in my bank account. So I have to say this. The difference between one million dollars or two million dollars when we are talking about twenty million dollars doesn’t seem like a whole lot to me. Which brings me to election ‘08.

Hillary Clinton raised $26 Million dollars for her campaign. Barack Obama raised $25 million. So in my opinion they are about even. Hillary Clinton though also added $10 million dollars from her Senate account. To my brain eleven million dollars is a more substantial amount of money than one million dollars. So Hillary Clinton has more money. They may have raised about the same this cycle but Sen. Clinton has the advantage overall. Lets face it, people knew when she ran for Senate she didn’t need the amount of money they gave her. Most people knew that money would end up in her presidential campaign sooner or later.

Now ABC News is reporting that Barack Obama’s total allocated for the primary is $23.5 million. According to the report sources inside the Clinton camp say she raised roughly $20 million for the campaign, they are still counting. So now Obama is ahead of Clinton in the primary by maybe $3.5 million. This is a more substantial amount than $1 million and it is being touted all over the place as evidence that Obama has a massive edge over Clinton. The article says news like this has “stunned the political world”.

But honestly? It is $3.5 million. It isn’t like Clinton only raised $10 million total for primaries. Also what about that other $10 million? Can she not use it for the primary? If she can then Clinton has bested Obama by $6.5 million in primary funds. If $3.5 million is a titanic sum of money in the world of the blogosphere and ABC News then $6.5 million must be a stunning blow the likes of which no one in the political world had ever seen.

Meanwhile if you are looking for context for that ’stunned the political world’ comment here it is:

Clinton has a distinct money advantage and leads in every national poll, but the fact that rookie Obama has bested a veteran like Clinton in many aspects of fundraising — he rasied $6.9 million on the Internet, for instance, compared with Clinton’s $4.2 million — has stunned the political world.

I admit that it is amazing Obama was able to raise that kind of cash and the fact that a lot of Obama’s money comes from small donors has some long term implications about his fundraising. To be honest though with the kind of amazingly positive press Obama has had I am surprised he didn’t outright beat Clinton. A Democratic primary voter would have to read some pretty far out right-wing newspapers & watch FOX News 24/7 to see something truly bad written or said about him. What I am surprised about and the real political story is the amazing amount of money Mitt Romney raised a man who has gotten some press, most of it negative about him switching sides and the only true national attention was when Ann Coulter made a self-serving sexual slur about John Edwards a few minutes after endorsing him.

Anyway I am curious about that other $10 million and a little bothered by this perception game.