Clintonites Still Aren't Sending Much Cash to Obama. Why That's Good News for the Dems.

These days, it isn't bad to be Barack Obama--especially when it comes to money.

When the Democratic nominee announced his massive $52 million June fundraising haul last week, we here at Stumper headquarters were struck by one number in particular: $68. That according to the campaign, was the month's average contribution's size. The amazing thing, we wrote, was that it was about $30 lower than the average contribution in May, April or March. Which implied one thing: "

Now that Chicago has filed its finance reports with the FEC, though, we decided that instead of just (ahem) guessing, we should actually quantify how much Clinton's former supporters gave. Given that the headlines say stuff like "Clinton Supporters Lend Obama a Big Fundraising Hand," we assumed that the stats would confirm our suppositions. They don't. Truth is, according to the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post, Obama received only $1.8 million in June from donors who'd given to Clinton since January 2007.*** That sum represented a paltry 3.5 percent of his monthly total and less than a tenth of what Clinton herself raised in April--hardly enough to account for the $30 million leap in Obama's fundraising from May (the last month of the primary season) to June (the first month of the general election). Moreover, about half of the $1.8 million came from 355 Clinton donors contributing more than $2,000 apiece--which kind of makes our whole hypothesis (i.e., Obama attracted a massive number of small-sum donors from Clinton's base) look dubious. Overall, only 2,200 Clinton donors--out of the hundreds of thousands who contributed to her campaign--sent their first checks to Obama last month.***

At first, this may look like a minus for Obama--you know, another opportunity for pundits to proclaim that he's yet to unify the party. But raising more than $50 million without overwhelming contributions from former Clinton donors is actually more impressive--and more encouraging for the future of Obama's money machine--than relying on them to reach that lofty mark. Here's why. For one thing, it means that many of those $5, $10 and $20 checks--the checks that lowered June's average contribution to $68--came from folks who may have sat out the Democratic primary but are now eager defeat McCain. Going forward,