Obama's Plan For The Money

Seems the strategy is to get as many new people registered as possible. As for the $22 million raised in May, what's been called meager, and the same as the amount McCain raised, I think many people were focused on the end of the primaries and saving themselves, so to speak, for the general election.

NYT: Future commercials could run on big national showcases like the Olympics in August and smaller cable networks like MTV and Black Entertainment Television that appeal to specific demographic and interest groups.

Mr. Obama is also dispatching paid staff members to all 50 states, an unusual move by the standards of modern presidential campaigns so often fought in just a contained group of contested territories.

His aides and advisers said they did not believe Obama necessarily has a serious chance of winning in many of the traditionally Republican states, but rather that he can at least draw Mr. McCain into spending time and money there while also swelling the rolls of Democratic voters and supporting other Democrats on the ballot.

His strategists are busily studying data from focus groups, magazine subscription lists and census studies. It is the beginning of an intensive door-to-door drive, using volunteers overseen by a growing staff of organizers, to reach voters using persuasive messages tailored to their individual interests through the mail, e-mail and word of mouth.

Now, free from the constraints of public financing, campaign and party officials have said that Mr. Obama’s budget for the rest of the year could be well above $300 million. But Mr. Obama’s fund-raising slowed abruptly in May, when the campaign raised $22 million, $10 million less than it had in April and an even sharper drop relative to his monthly performances earlier in the year. The decline was evidence that Mr. Obama might have to work hard to keep donations coming in at the record pace he has been setting.