Obama rebounds with second-best fundraising month: $52 million

We may want to check Barack Obama’s bowling average again, because that 37 may just have been sandbagging.  Obama seems to have sandbagged everyone on fundraising in June.  People assumed the delay in announcing the numbers meant he had something to hide, but apparently it takes a long time to count to $52 million:

After posting lower and lower totals since their stunning $55 mil February (Mar=41, Apr=31, May=22) the Obama campaign has roared back with their second best month ever.

Senator McCain’s campaign announced last week that they had raised $22 million in June, and that, combined with the RNC’s fundraising, had nearly $95 million in the bank.

Hence the Obama campaign has now combined their number with the DNC’s (which has been much less successful this cycle than the RNC) for a total of nearly $72 million in cash on hand.

It’s an impressive figure.  According to the campaign, the average donation was $68.  The total almost beats the Obama campaign’s total haul from April and May combined, when Hillary Clinton beat him like a bongo drum through the Rust Belt.  Her concession appears to have inspired many of her former donors to give to Obama’s effort.

Obama needs to maintain this level of fundraising throughout the campaign.  Thanks to his flip-flop on public financing, he doesn’t have to obey any spending limits, but he has to also keep fundraising — an expensive process, and one that will take him off of the campaign circuit more than John McCain.  McCain has a guaranteed $84 million, but the RNC can raise and spend as much as it can on its own, and right now, even with the big July, the Democrats are significantly behind.

Will Obama have a good July?  He has to compete with Hillary’s attempts to retire her campaign debt as well as deal with the aftermath of his FISA reform flip-flop.  If he maintains this level of fundraising, then he will have little trouble rolling through the general election on a cushion of cash.  July will be the key.

Update (AP): The cash-on-hand numbers put out earlier by Obama’s team are wrong. $72 million is what his campaign has on hand; the DNC has another $20 million, for a total of $92 million. That puts them right behind McCain and the RNC.