Mitt's Laughing All The Way To The Bank

Say what you will about the truly awful optics of Romney's fundraisers among the ultra-rich bringing out the most callous and heartless of America's wealthiest people, the cold hard fact are all about the cold hard cash, and in that department Team Romney posted their second consecutive monthly spanking of the Obama campaign in the cash race.

According to the early details of Romney’s latest fundraising totals, the glitzy optics are in tune with the reality. The Romney campaign announced Monday it took in a dominant $106 million in combined donations to the campaign, the RNC and assorted committees, compared with just $71 million for Obama.

The FEC reports are not online, but the New York Times reported that a staggering $70 million of Romney’s haul came through his victory fund, a collection of state and national party committees that are designed to take much bigger donations than the main campaign. While donors can only give $2,500 each to Romney’s general election and primary campaign, the limit on Romney Victory Inc. is $75,800. Romney’s campaign itself raised only $24 million. It’s not yet known how much of Obama’s $71 million haul came from its regular campaign.

Romney’s joint fund releases its finances on a quarterly basis, so there’s no way to tell what percentage of its cash is coming from big-money backers until July 15, but it’s extremely likely the bulk will be exactly the types of donations you’d expect to be collected at, say, Romney’s $50,000-a-plate gala in Aspen, Colo., on Monday. Obama’s own victory fund, for example, which releases its reports on a monthly basis, reported that as of May 31, only about 8 percent of its year-to-date fundraising came from un-itemized donors who gave less than $250.

Romney, of course, is not alone in attending ostentatious events aimed at high-dollar donors. Obama recently held a high-profile $40,000-per-ticket Hollywood fundraiser with George Clooney, for example. Obama also held more fundraisers than any recent president. Overall, however, Obama has been much more reliant on small donors and much less reliant on max-money contributors than Romney. 

The fact remains that in the last two months Romney has opened up a $42 million advantage in fundraising and has become the first this year to break the $100 million per month mark.  At this pace Romney could end up with a nine-digit advantage in the campaigns by late October and taking into account Super-PAC money, that advantage could be several hundred million dollars if not approaching the billion-dollar level.  That kind of money is enough to bury the Obama campaign in ad buys in the last six weeks of the election season, and both sides know it.  They could run ads in every market in the country for weeks, non-stop.

Citizen's United?  Working as intended.