The always excellent Marc Abinder brings us a preview of the October fundraising numbers. This of course will have tremendous implications for the direction of the GOP primary.

Romney has loaned himself nearly $9M, which, when subtracted from his $12M cash-on-hand, would suggest that receipts in have not kept pace with disbursements, generally, which have totaled more than $32M. Romney donors said that they had been told that Romney was prepared to spend another $5M to keep his campaign's budget intact. They give a range of $10M to $12M for individual contributions in the third quarter.

John McCain will raise between $4 and $5M; Fred Thompson will probably raise around $6M.

If this is true that Fred Thompson is barely ahead of John McCain in the fundraising department, it certainly does not bode well for Team Thompson. Even considering that Thompson has not revved up the engine throughout the third quarter, he should have been able to reach out and tap the primary network of contributors for a big initial flush of cash. Either his network isn't very big, or the enthusiasm with which his campaign has been received will receive a cold shower.

In a dramatic turnaround from statements that he made a few months ago, former Senator John Edwards has now decided to accept public funding for his Presidential campaign.

John Edwards' decision to accept public matching funds to finance his campaign is a political blow but it's probably also the only lifeline he has to stay in the race. The simple fact is that Edwards was never going to keep pace with the Democratic front-runner, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, or the upstart campaign of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

This represents the end for Edwards' campaign for the Presidency, since Edwards won't be able to match the media spending by Clinton or Obama next year. But it does enable him to stay in the race through the primaries, something that the other non-front running Democratic Presidential aspirants might not be able to do.

I'm not sure what Edwards goal is. I don't think he's a viable Vice-Presidential candidate for either Hillary or Obama. Post 2004 election analysis was pretty definitive in showing that Edwards didn't really bring much to the Kerry campaign. The Kerry-Edwards ticket even lost Edwards' home state of North Carolina in 2004, 56% - 44%.

Edwards for President 2012, anyone?

Marc Cooper writes about a huge miss for the John Edwards camp at the Huffington Post:

The top leadership of the SEIU met all day Monday in Chicago to consider who to back in the Democratic primaries but decided to postpone any formal endorsement. For at least two years Edwards has been laboring to line up union support which his strategists see as crucial to any realistic chance to capture the Democratic nomination. "John had been counting on the unions as a sort of super-charger, an after-burner," said a California operative of the Edwards campaign. "But now we are in danger of a flame-out."

And that this is all a huge bitter blow considering all the work Edwards has done since 2004, when he was the labor nominee:

Since the conclusion of the failed 2004 Democratic campaign, Edwards had been meticulously trying to build a solid, national union base. He walked endless picket lines, attended dozens of labor rallies and built strong personal relationships with top union leaders like Stern. His honed economic populist program was sweet music to union ears and six months ago an SEIU endorsement of Edwards seemed almost a slam dunk.

But that the SEIU is not about to get burned again:

SEIU officials are openly concerned that their once-favored Edwards is running a distant third in most national and state polls (with the exception of Iowa) and may no longer be a viable candidate, no matter how many union resources are poured into his campaign.

Surprising many, the UAW voted to strike General Motors yesterday, in the first national autoworkers walkout against GM since 1970. With Democratic Presidential aspirants Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards scheduled to speak today before a forum in Illinois sponsored by a union umbrella organization, Change to Win, I thought it would be interesting to see what those campaigns had to say about the UAW strike. I found a collection of quotes on this page and found the responses interesting.

Obama seems to think that the strike is over wages and benefits - but it's not. Hillary avoids the factual missteps and claims that all would be better if the UAW and the automakers had met in the Oval Office - although that meeting couldn't have possibly settled the issue that the UAW went out on strike over. (But it's nice that she indicated that her Presidency would jump right in the middle of union-management contract negotiations.) Edwards just spewed union boilerplate, also neglecting to mention the primary strike reason. He's much better when his wife Elizabeth speaks for him.

It takes an Associated Press article from last night and a columnist from the Detroit News to tell us what this is all about, and why the strike is a dangerous idea for the union and an equally dangerous idea for the Democrat candidates to embrace. The union walked out on GM, a company that is now one fifth of its size in 1990, because GM wouldn't promise the current employees permanent job security. GM, for its part, is also worried about setting up a $55 billion trust fund to administer its retiree programs.

With apologies to "Star Trek," let me just say this about John McCain's presidential aspirations: "It's dead, Jim".

Over the weekend, David Freddoso at NRO traveled to the Michigan GOP confab at Mackinac Island where just hours earlier John McCain lost his Michigan chairman. Yes they were both there:


That's a pretty big hit. Some of us recall that in 2000 John McCain won a surprising and huge victory in the Michigan primary If he has any hope at all (and he doesn't) he needs to do the same thing in 2008. That's not going to happen when your main man in Michigan decides to jump ship. But then again, McCain was able to convince a lot of Democrats and independents to come over and vote GOP (and for him) instead of the boring and decided Democratic nomination. This year, Hillary Clinton is not quite anointed yet, and Democrats will probably choose to vote on the Democratic side.

See more at the Detroit News.

He has to fly commercial?! It's definitely over.

This is getting very interesting. There were two more articles today about some questionable fund-raising practices by Democrats, specifically Hillary Clinton. The first is from the Wall Street Journal, Donors Stir 'Bundling' Questions:

BRISTOW, Va. -- When Hillary Rodham Clinton held an intimate fund-raising event at her Washington home in late March, Pamela Layton donated $4,600, the maximum allowed by law, to Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign. But the 37-year-old Ms. Layton says she and her husband were reimbursed by her husband's boss for the donations. "It wasn't personal money. It was all corporate money," Mrs. Layton said outside her home here. "I don't even like Hillary. I'm a Republican."

Read it all. It gives a good summary of the practice known as "bundling". The second article is from this morning's Washington Post, Past Clouds Candidates' Donor Lists, which starts off with this gem:

A list of the donors who have "bundled" large sums from dozens of individuals to give to Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign includes several figures who were involved in the 1990s Democratic Party fundraising scandal that tarnished her husband's record. Among them is an Oklahoma oilman who testified in the mid-1990s that the firm he worked for, owned by Democratic fundraisers, sought to curry favor with Bill Clinton's administration by providing payments and a golf club membership to a Cabinet secretary's son.

To give the appearance of fairness, the Washington Post does note that one of Mitt Romney's national finance co-chair was indicted. That man, Alan Fabian, immediately resigned and his contributions were returned, which the Post doesn't tell you.

Looks like campaign finance abuses are once again going to be a big story during this election cycle.

Ryan Sager does a stand up job taking apart the effort to resuscitate John McCain in the media.

Once considered by some the unquestionable front-runner for the GOP nomination (despite every poll showing Mayor Giuliani out front), over the summer the Straight Talker has been having his obituary typed up like a frail pope with a robust head cold. Now, however, the press is ready to declare a McCain "rebound." A Washington Post columnist, David Broder, recently said Mr. McCain has found his footing; the Manchester Union-Leader penned an editorial heralding, "A comeback begun," and the Arizona Republic said, " McCain is on the rise."

It's only a matter of time before Newsweek runs a cover declaring Mr. McCain "The Comeback Kid" or some other such nonsense.

Humbug - to put it politely. Mr. McCain certainly has seen a bounce since August, when he bottomed out with national numbers such as 7% in the Fox News poll and 11% in the Quinnipiac poll. Now, he's back up to an average of around 15%, exactly where he was in July and 10 points down from where he was in January. So, yes, call it a bounce - like a dead cat hitting the pavement.

That front-runner status was always a fiction, and the perception relied on an ignorance of what the average Republican voter really thought about McCain. The only thing changed is that the CW became a bit more educated as a result of the immigration debate and the aftermath.

The latest fundraising numbers put it in perspective. In the first quarter, McCain raised $12.5 million. In the second quarter, he raised about $11 million. Now in the third quarter, he's raised only $3.7 million with next to no cash on hand? That's not the direction you want to be moving in. Now that the numbers are out, the other campaigns won't take him seriously and neither will the media. McCain is over. But then again, he always was.

The Politico is reporting that a Texas oilman now on trial for paying kickbacks to Saddam Hussein made quite a few donations to politicians before being indicted in 2005. Doing my own quick search through Fundrace and OpenSecrets.org, I wasn't able to find any Republicans who the oilman, Oscar Wyatt, donated to, other than the one that the article mentions, John McCain. All of the donors reported on in the article have indicated that they either have or intend to donate the money from the oilman to charity. All of them, that is, except for Hillary Clinton.

Joe Biden is donating to charity a contribution from a Houston oilman on trial for charges related to paying kickbacks to Saddam Hussein, and John McCain says he'll follow if Oscar Wyatt is convicted. But Hillary Rodham Clinton would make no such pledge.

Now that this story is in the news, I'm certain that Hillary will donate the money to charity, and make a big public relations thrust while doing so. That what her campaign does best -- make lemonade out of lemons. But this does highlight Hillary's biggest weakness -- lack of judgment. Her first instinct is not to do what's right, but what's best for her own self interest. In this case, money.

Well this is interesting.John Edwards is attacking Hillary Clinton for corruption:

"Today's Clinton fundraising event is a 'poster child' for what is wrong with Washington and what should never happen again with a candidate running for the highest office in the land," Edwards' senior adviser Joe Trippi said in a letter to supporters.

Edwards and Barack Obama have declined money from individuals who lobby the federal government and have tried to portray Clinton, who does accept lobbyists' money, as beholden to special interests. Obama and Edwards do accept money from corporate executives whose industries have interests in government policies.

In response, Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer said, "Increasingly negative attacks against other Democrats aren't going to end the war, deliver universal health care or turn John Edwards' flagging campaign around."

Boo-yah Mr. Singer! I like the response. But what's interesting here is what John Edwards is not attacking. Hillary Clinton and her campaign has been roiled by the ongoing and seemingly never-ending revelations about Norman Hsu and his money.

This story at Fox might explain why Hillary Clinton and all the others missed their Sister Souljah moment.

In just the 2006 election cycle, MoveOn.org spent $27 million in advocacy to elect a Democratic majority in Congress and used its formidable fund-raising clout to propel numerous Democratic challengers to House and Senate victories. By comparison, the NRA PAC donated $11 million in 2006.

"They give away and raise about three times as much as the National Rifle Association," said Massie Ritsch, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics. "A tremendous amount of money, especially when you consider how quickly they came on the scene."

Jay Cost at RCP writes that essentially what MoveOn and others have done is to replace the national party system with a network of shadow parties. It makes much more sense to see MoveOn and their actions as a part of the Democratic Party.

No, it's not 1996 again. It's 2007, and the Clintons find themselves in another fund-raising scandal, this time with a boy named Hsu (sorry...). Here's Hillary's original statement when the nation found out that Norman Hsu (her longtime friend and donor) was under the spotlight for funneling donations to Hillary and other Democrats using straw donors:

"Norman Hsu is a longtime and generous supporter of the Democratic Party and its candidates, including Sen. Clinton," Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for the campaign, said Tuesday. "During Mr. Hsu's many years of active participation in the political process, there has been no question about his integrity or his commitment to playing by the rules, and we have absolutely no reason to call his contributions into question or to return them."

A statement like that from any of the Clintons is like the kiss of death. Of course we then immediately found out that Norman Hsu was a wanted felon, so Hillary (professing to be shocked) decided to give the money her campaign got directly from Hsu to charity. Following up on that story, it came out that Hsu was also responsible for bundling about $850,000 of donations to Hill's campaign. That's a real problem - according to the original story in the Wall Street Journal, some of those Hillary donors don't really have the means to donate the extravagant sums of money they did to Democratic candidates - so much so that the Feds have opened an investigation into this.

That's all odd enough, but as with all Clinton stories, it does manage to get stranger. Hsu turned himself in to authorities in California, and posts $2 million of his own money in bail. He then skips town, forfeiting the funds, and is found on a train after apparently attempting to commit suicide. Meanwhile, we find out that Hsu's also responsible for a missing $40 million - given to him recently in an investment scheme. The question now is how much of the $850,000 bundled by Hsu and given to Hillary's campaign is embezzled funds?

Most people, at this point, would just give up and return all of the funds to Hsu's donors, and make the list of donors available to both the public and the authorities. But that's not Hillary's style. She's decided to hide the names of the bundled donors, and will re-accept the donated funds in question as long as the donors sign an affidavit signifying that the money is theirs. Thus guaranteeing more legs for this story.

Ah, Hillary. I knew I could count on you...

MoveOn.org, the formerly extreme, now mainstream organization published a despicable ad calling General Petraeus General "Betray-us" and generally demeaned the man and his command.

Petraeus has always been a great soldier and a stright-shooter and a soldiers soldier. Anyone who has read anything about his career knows that he has excelled at every commend he has held and unbeknownst to the military-hating Moveon crowd, not just anyone can become a four-star general. It takes intense training for years, incredible amounts of education and a small bit of luck. Petraeus holds a Masters in Public Administration and a PhD in International Relations. I would suspect that neithet Pinch Sulzberger or any of the leadership at MoveOn has even remotely the experience, education or credentials that General Petraeus has. Then man is also highly decorated, in fact, Petraeus is the best Commanding General we've had since maybe Omar Bradley.

The New York Times is complicit in the smear of Petraeus by not only running the vile ad but running it at nearly a 50% discount in the first section of the paper on the day the General briefed Congress. The Times ran an ad defending the President's policies and supporting our troops paid for by Freedoms Watch, which was made to pay much more for the same type ad.

In essence, the NY Times is shilling for an organization that smears our troops, their leader and America and doing it for pennie on the dollar. This should put to rest any argument about media bias.

The General handled it with the class a military officer should:

Petraeus called portions of MoveOn.org's ad "flat, completely wrong" and the rest "at least more than arguable."

Note he was not shrill or defensive because he has much more pressing matters--such as winning a war--to worry about than a whiny, solipsistic collection of communist hacks who are hastening the steady decline of a once-great newspaper. Enjoy falling behind the Newark Star-Ledger in readership Pinch.

The mystery of where Norman Hsu got his money turns out to have a really simple answer: He stole it. The WSJ broke this story but it's behind a subscription wall, so I'm linking to Fox:

The newspaper reports that a company run by Norman Hsu, who donated nearly $2 million to Democratic candidates since 2004 - including presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton - recently received $40 million from a Madison Avenue investment fund run by Joel Rosenman, one of the creators of the fabled Woodstock rock festival in 1969.

Now, that $40 million is missing, Rosenman reportedly told investors this week.

This raises a new wrinkle for Hillary Clinton and her Democratic cohorts. Up to now they've been grudgingly returning the money by paying it to some unspecified charity. Now that the money turns out to be stolen, will they return the money to its rightful owners?

And how would one determine the rightful owner? Who gets paid first? This is going to be a first-class, grade-A mess. One question that just occurred to me is whether the Justice Department has the ability and willingness to freeze the funds wherever they may be. Then things would get really interesting.

Yes, the headline says $850-thousand. This has jumped from being a small donations scandal to being an organized campaign that raised money in a less than legal manner and a large portion of it went to Hillary Clinton. The campaign is being ambiguous on just what it knows about the "bundling" charges but the simple fact that they returned donations to 260 people says two things: they are scared of how this will play out and this is way more wide-spread than the Paw family, some managers in a Pennsylvania factory and Hsu's buddies.

Here we go, Clinton has yet to win anything and she's already involved in a scandal that could end up with one of her "Hill-raisers" in the pokey and hard scrutiny on her fund raising. Scrutiny that should have been focused earlier.

How could someone as politically astute as Hillary and Bill allow 260 people to donate to them without some investigation into where the money was coming from? I know you can't vet every donation, but they must have some evidence the money was tainted as they're returning it. Do they have evidence that it was all Norman Hsu-connected?

It's time for the Clinton's to come clean and it's time for the media to ask the tough questions as Hillary and Barack Obama have been named in case that involved violation of federal law.

Not only is there the problem of explaining where the money came from and why it was distributed illegally through third party nobodies. The problem is also that the Democrats were counting on Norman Hsu for funds:

Hsu was expected to organize at least three major Democrat events on the West Coast in the coming weeks, though at least two of those events are now in doubt.

Hsu, who has raised, by conservative estimates, more than $1 million for Democrats in the past election cycle, spent the latter part of 2006 being wooed by every major Democrat presidential campaign for high profile fundraising roles in their national campaigns. In fact, the Hillary Clinton campaign had offered Hsu a very clear role.

"Around the office it was known back in January or February that Hillary's finance people had offered Norman the finance chair job for the Western part of the country," says a DNC staffer with ties to the Clinton campaign. "It was a similar role that he was seeking from other campaigns before he made his final choice."

Guess he won't be getting that job after all. Despite the clear cut evidence that something is rotten in Denmark, it is not guaranteed that there is going to be much political fallout. Hillary Clinton's opponents are limited in their attack on Hsu by their complicity in taking his money as well. This is nearly a party-wide problem. By the time the primaries are done in the spring and Hillary has been anointed the Democratic nominee, the news cycle will have moved on to other things. The GOP may push the button in issue ads, but that will all be "old news". The Clintons are very good at brushing aside old news.

It may well be that the biggest Hsu effect is to the Democrats' wallet.