Major Change In '08 Campaign As Feb. Primary Looms
BY JOHN TOSCANO

As if gaining new energy from the surprising turn in the contribution race, Obama's campaign appeared to hit another gear as his aides explained that most of his funds were generated through the Internet from a flock of small contributors attracted to his call for a new politics.

The race for the White House in 2008 could hit a crucial make-or-break point next February 5, "Super Tuesday" primary day, as voters in almost half of all 50 states will indicate their choices for Democratic and Republican candidates in the general elections which will follow nine months later.

New York state joined about 22 other states in setting Feb. 5, 2008 as presidential primary day when Governor Eliot Spitzer this past Monday signed legislation bringing New York into alignment with others with primaries on that day.

Major electoral vote states such as California and Texas also have February 5, so the same day balloting will probably have a major effect on singling out the most preferred candidates in either party.

At this point, with Super Tuesday still some 10 months away, the fields seeking the nomination are so large and divided that there is no absolute standout, although many prognosticators make former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and this state's junior senator, Hillary Clinton, the respective Republican and Democratic frontrunners.

But no one is ruling out Senator Barack Obama or John Edwards, Dem challengers, or Senator John McCain and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney from the Republican side.

The impact of Super Tuesday among political mavens is that it will definitely eliminate from the field most "also rans", those candidates that will not draw voter support and will then have more trouble than previously attracting campaign funding.

In fact, one of the main impacts of the February 5 primaries will be a sort of the "rich get richer" effect- the flow of campaign contributions will be strongest for the top vote getters.

Of course, a healthy campaign treasury will be a main reason why the most popular candidates will be in contending positions going into Super Tuesday.

Super Tuesday will then be setting the tone of the presidential campaigns up to the national party conventions in August, where the candidates will then be officially chosen by each organization.

At this point in this drawn-out process of pursuing the presidential nomination, Obama has emerged as a real threat to Clinton, based on straw polls. It became much more of a true perception when he virtually matched Clinton in the campaign funding race when both announced that they had raised about $26 million at the end of the first filing period, which was March 31.

On the Republican side, it came as a surprise that Romney led the GOP pack with $20 million raised, followed by Giuliani with $15 million and $12.5 million for McCain, who was equally surprising with his ranking at the low-end of the list.

Clinton had released her total intake of $26 million on April 1; Obama did not announce his total contributions until a few days later. Clinton then added in $10 million more, which was switched over from her Senate war chest.

Meanwhile, Edwards trailed Clinton and Obama, reporting he had raised about $14 million.

Clinton was hailed as raking in a record amount, but the Obama camp virtually matched Clinton's total for the first filing period (minus the $10 million she added), somehow removed the aura from Clinton's effort and, in effect, placed the laurel wreath on Obama's head.

As if gaining new energy from the surprising turn in the contribution race, Obama's campaign appeared to hit another gear as his aides explained that most of his funds were generated through the Internet from a flock of small contributors attracted to his call for a new politics.

The freshman Illinois senator also suddenly scheduled several fundraising forays onto Clinton's New York turf and showed some ability to attract major contributions in Clinton country.

Some polls published at this time also showed Obama making gains on Clinton.

Meanwhile, Romney's sudden emergence as a leader in the funding race generated comparisons of his strength in conservative Republican areas as compared to Giuliani and McCain.

Unfortunately for Giuliani, the former mayor was coming off a period of negative news stories involving his wife, Judith Nathan, and also some negative press about Bernard Kerik, Giuliani's appointee as Police Commissioner and his candidate to be national homeland security head. That all fell apart embarrassingly almost as quickly as it had started when it was revealed Kerik could be facing some criminal charges.

In the McCain camp, there was an immediate assessment that major changes were necessary to get his back to the eminent position he started out with in the campaign.