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Opinion: Democratic fundraising surge, but...

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This is, as you may have guessed from your junk mail and e-mail, another very busy year for fund-raising, much of it political, in the hundreds of millions of dollars, as a matter of fact.

While much of the media attention has been focused on the presidential campaigns, President Bush has been out fund-raising up a storm. Yes, that President Bush, the one with the approval rating that nearly broke an historic low. ‘The president is still the No. 1 fund-raiser for our party -- period,’ Republican National Committee spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt told USA Today.

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There are many downsides for the Republicans in the new Democratic control of Congress. And one of them is that while the president has raised more money through July 31 this year than the same period two years ago, he’s had to work twice as hard to do it.

Bush has gathered in $55 million so far this year, but it took him 15 events to do it. In 2005, he raised $53 million at seven events. Funny how money follows power. And lame ducks can appear, well, lame.

On the other hand, Democratic presidential candidates are surpassing their ...

GOP counterparts on fund-raising this year. An analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, commissioned by USA Today, finds that so far Democratic White House contenders have quadrupled the amount of money they’ve raised from the nation’s wealthiest communities since 2003.

Through June 30 of this year Democrats had raked in nearly $32 million from the 50 top donating ZIP Codes, compared to $13.8 million for Republican contenders. Hillary Clinton was the top recipient in 28 of those ZIP Codes.

The top ZIP Code for giving? New York’s 10021 with $4.5 million, of which Clinton received $1.4 million and Rudy Giuliani $941,000.

But here’s some food for thought from the analysis. Fewer than 1% of Americans donate to a political campaign. This means that while we’re all watching voters in early primary and caucus states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, thinking they’re deciding the elections, the real financial campaign power is being exercised by a tiny fraction of little-noticed citizens in a handful of tony ZIP Codes in Beverly Hills, Palm Beach and New York City’s Upper East Side.**

--Andrew Malcolm

(**Now, go here to our Campaign ’08 page, scroll to the bottom of the middle column and try The Times’ Presidential Money Tracker to see whos’ giving how much to which candidate in any Southern California ZIP Code.)

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