It has been mentioned elsewhere within the blogosphere, but I think it bears repeating here on MyDD: The three Democratic campaign committees outraised the three Republican campaign committees for the first quarter of this year. Ken Silverstein has the details over at Harper's.

Last spring, with Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, I wrote an item saying that for corporations and federal contractors looking for favors in Washington, it was hardly even worth buying a Democrat anymore. But the November 2006 Democratic victory changed all that. Political fundraising numbers were released last week and they show that during the first quarter of 2007, Democrats raised slightly more money overall ($47.7 million) than Republicans ($47.4 million). Compare that to the first quarter of 2003, when the GOP trounced the Democrats in the hunt for cash $54 million to $19 million.

The numbers cited by Silverstein are important for a few reasons. While much ink has been spilled over the fact that the Democratic presidential candidates vastly outraised their Republican counterparts this quarter, it was far from a foregone conclusion that the Democratic campaign committees -- the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) -- would outraise their Republican counterparts this cycle, particularly at this point in the cycle.

While the DSCC under Chuck Schumer has proved significantly more adept at fundraising than the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the DCCC has noticeably destroyed the National Republican Congressional Committee's traditional fundraising advantage (both of which are at least in part, though not wholly, a result of the change in power in Congress), the Republican National Committee has, in recent years, been able to use the power of the Bush White House to create such a large fundraising advantage over the DNC to more than wipe out the deficiencies by the party's other two committees. Yet Howard Dean's DNC has kept close enough pace with the RNC so far this year to ensure that the Democrats, as a whole, are at least on financial par with the Republicans.

But looking at the absolute numbers, which show remarkable strength for the Democrats (both in real terms and in comparison with the same point in the previous presidential cycle), does not tell the whole story. During the first quarter of this year, the three Democratic campaign committees raised in excess of 250 percent more than they did at the same point in 2003. The Republican committees, however, raised nearly 13 percent less than they did four years ago.

Again, these numbers can at least partially be chalked up to the fact that the Democrats are now in power in Congress whereas they weren't in 2003. But that does not account for all of their increase and the decrease on the part of the Republicans -- a decrease that is particularly notable given that the amount individual donors can contribute to campaign committees has been adjusted upward for inflation since 2003.

All in all, these numbers must have Republicans extremely worried. Though they have been able to maintain power and win individual elections in the past by vastly outspending Democrats, both on the macro level and in individual contests, if the Democratic Party is able to match the GOP dollar for dollar -- or even outspend the GOP, which does not seem quite as far fetched a proposition as one might have thought even a year ago -- it's going to be awfully difficult for Republicans maintain control over the White House or to hold on to all of their seats in Congress, let alone come close to picking up the seats necessary to retake control over either chamber.