Fund-raising frenzy for Obama, Clinton

BY LETTA TAYLER AND KEITH HERBERT | letta.tayler@newsday.com
keith.herbert@newsday.com

February 8, 2008

NEW ORLEANS - Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama went for voters' wallets as well as their ballots Thursday as they scrambled to out-fundraise each other following their Super Tuesday tie.

Obama also agreed to Clinton's challenge for two more debates before the March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio, states where polls show the New York senator leading.

A comment Obama made at Tulane University here before announcing the matchups suggested he expected a fight. "They like you when you are 20 points down, but when you start actually challenging the status quo, then the claws come out," he said.

In the fundraising race, Obama led with a staggering $7.6 million in new pledges since polls closed Tuesday, according to his Web site. Clinton aides said she was closing in with $6.4 million in new funds.

"It has been a gigantic showing of support. It's still coming in. It will allow us to do all the things we need to do," Clinton campaign manager Terry McAuliffe said. In e-mailings, the Clinton camp urged donors to pledge $10 million before contests Saturday in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington state.

The funding duel heated up a day after Clinton acknowledged she loaned her campaign $5 million last month.

Aides initially said some staffers would forgo paychecks as the rivals compete in seven more primaries over the next five days. Thursday they said staffers would be paid after all.

Obama's camp gleefully turned Clinton's loan into its own pitch that jabbed his rival and her former-president husband.

"Hillary and Bill Clinton just gave their campaign $5 million," Obama's Web site says, urging supporters to top that.

Clinton insists the money wasn't from her husband, who has made a fortune in lecturing and consulting, and that he is not her shadow candidate.

But Obama suggested Clinton's refusal to release her income tax returns -- as he has -- leaves the source of the $5 million unclear. "I think the American people deserve to know where you get your income from," he said.

Clinton raised $115 million to Obama's $103 million last year. But Obama's record $32 million haul last month was 2½ times that of Clinton's.

Some pundits interpreted Clinton's call for five more debates as a need for free advertising. Obama's campaign agreed to two, saying he wanted to spend more time with voters.

Obama is favored in many contests before then, including tomorrow in Louisiana and Tuesday in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Those states have many blacks and affluent whites, groups that supported him in previous balloting.

Virginia has similar demographics, but Clinton is seen as having superior ground operations and endorsements there.

At a rally in Arlington, Va., Clinton focused on presumptive GOP nominee John McCain, saying he offered "more of the same" while she would start bringing troops home from Iraq and provide health care for all.

Before visiting a Katrina-flooded school in New Orleans, where students study in trailers, Obama pledged to repair remaining damage from the 2005 hurricane he said symbolizes the "dysfunction and cronyism and incompetence" of the Bush administration.