With the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee now fully part of the two parties' presumptive nominees' campaign efforts and likely to spend the great bulk of their cash on the race for the White House, I'm splitting off the two national committees from my monthly tally of the finance filings of the parties' congressional committees to write about them instead in tandem with posts on the fundraising of John McCain and Barack Obama. So on their own, here are the latest numbers on the parties' congressional campaign committees:

Right now the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has close to a 2-to-1 cash-on-hand advantage over the National Republican Senatorial Committee, while the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's edge over the National Republican Congressional Committee on the House side is roughly 6.5-to-1. Overall, the two Democratic committees have a 3-to-1 lead in cash in the bank, as well as an astonishing $100 million available.

These numbers again underscore the fact that although the punditry can try to make it seem that the race for control of Congress, or even Democratic efforts to significantly increase their majorities in both Houses, are closer than they actually are, the money race makes it exceedingly difficult for the Republicans to do much to defend themselves this year. Coupled with the generic congressional ballot polling showing the Democrats maintaining a wide advantage within the electorate, these fundraising numbers show again that the Democrats maintain a real opportunity to bring sweeping change this fall -- a situation that can only occur, however, if the party remains diligent and energized through election day.

Big numbers this morning from the Obama campaign:

Democrat Barack Obama raised $52 million last month, boosting his presidential campaign's fundraising while building up his financial cache for the fall campaign.

The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee ended June with a combined total of nearly $72 million in the bank. The figure represents a notable fundraising jump, especially for the DNC.

But the Democrats still lag Republican John McCain's presidential campaign and the Republican Party.

Last week, McCain reported raising more than $22 million in June, which was his best month of the year. Together, the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee began July with about $95 million in the bank.

[...]

The DNC said it raised $22.4 million in June, a dramatic increase from the $4.7 million it raised in May. The spike in fundraising came after Obama and the DNC formed a joint fundraising effort. Donors can give a maximum contribution to the party of $28,500.

The DNC still fell short of its Republican counterpart, which raised $26 million in June.

It's interesting to see the press, who had previously been fixated on (as it turns out) erroneous reports that the Obama campaign had brought in about $30 million for the month -- a number they saw as underwhelming -- try to make the argument that Obama's $52 million somehow fails to meet expectations, too. Just a few minutes ago on MSNBC, Chuck Todd, whose work I usually find to be quite insightful, appeared unimpressed by this report. No mention, of course, that Obama's haul was more than two and a third times larger than that of McCain, or that the DNC more than quadrupled its take from the previous month, or that the pace set by Obama this month would provide him more than enough resources to justify his wise decision not to opt into the public financing program.

This actually evokes something that Matthew Yglesias wrote about yesterday: The notion that everything must be good news for John McCain. Consistently trailing Obama in the polls? Good news! Taking in less than half the money as the Obama campaign in a month? Good news! Not connecting with voters? Good news! ...? Good news!

Cross-posted from OH-16: John Boccieri for U.S. Congress:

Schuring Bought by Big Oil, Corporate Executives that Slash 16th District Jobs

Canton, OH - 16th Congressional District Candidate John Boccieri raised $391,237.61 in the second fundraising quarter of 2008, bringing his total raised this cycle to $1,081,509.40 and his current cash on hand to $531,015.15.

Boccieri has a broad base of small donors. More than half of his contributions this quarter were $100 or less, and three in five of those small donations came from within the 16th District.

More below the fold...

The public outcry when Obama decided to forgo public financing was deafening, I assume. I didn't hear many people caring, but I kept being told everyone cared, so I just figured the first collective gasp was so loud it blew out my eardrums.

Of course, while members of the media reported on fretting by various other members of the media over what this meant for Obama's message of change, we were also treated to McCain's camp pulling out one of those labels that the media has given him: "campaign finance reformer".

In our fundraising efforts to attend the Democratic Convention in August, we've decided to focus on a small donor campaign.  We figured out that it'll take us 240 people contributing $25 each for us to reach what we need to go to Denver and provide you with the best convention coverage in America.  So far, we have the equivalent of 42 ($1050), leaving us 198 to go.  Anyone reading this should be able to donate $25 to help us get there.

Go to PayPal and donate through our Florida Progressive Coalition account (quinnelk@gmail.com), or you can write a check to Florida Progressive Coalition and send it to me:

There are varying reports that Barack Obama's June wasn't a huge fundraising success. The campaign denies reports that their haul last month was only $30 million.

Nonetheless, there's a couple explanations floating around that feel slightly off-target to me.

Josh Marshall:

...small dollar giving seems highly dependent on the intensity of the moment and the spikes of the campaign cycle. During the heat of the Obama-Clinton battle, giving money was one of the most direct ways supporters around the country could participate in the fight -- except when the campaign trundled into their states. And that applies to both campaigns since, by any standard other than up against Obama, Clinton's 2008 monthly numbers were astounding too.

Yglesias:

The combination of Obama mostly focusing on showing his more centrist side while also maintaining a stable lead in the polls seems to me to discourage activists from giving to the campaign. People are thinking to themselves, why not save that money and by a G3 iPhone or give it to progressive Senate candidate?

(Let's assume Matt's kidding about the iPhone.)

The larger implication from both arguments is that if Obama's fundraising numbers are low, the reason is likely a political motivation on behalf of supporters: either lower enthusiasm or a feeling that any one small-dollar donation isn't needed. Both explanations sound at least partially valid.

But given yesterday's "nation of whiners" kerfuffle, aren't we missing a larger context? The economy is in terrible shape. And for the same reason that our country's economic problems aren't purely psychological, shouldn't we assume that political giving from middle and lower-income people might drop off their list of priorities?

Gestures matter. It's about the gesture.

Obama needs to raise a lot of money. He's tapped all of his donors and would like to tap into Clinton's.

Obama was asked to send one email to his wide network of donors, and make a request that each supporter consider donating to Hillary Clinton to help retire her debt. It's tradition. It's a gesture of respect. It's also best done immediately after she endorses him, when the excitement is still high. She was a worthy adversary and created a lot of excitement around the Democrats this year.

The Obama campaign sent no such email. They reasoned, they told reporters, they could not afford to. They could send an email with her picture in it, or mention that she endorsed him. But ask people to retire her debt? Too risky.

You see, because the Obama campaign raised so much money, they could not afford to make a request of donors to retire Hillary's debt for fear said donors would take them up on it.

The Obama campaign, having raised so much money, decided they could not afford to opt into the same public financing system that John McCain did. The same system Obama had promised to opt into. The same system that was designed to keep fatcat donors from holding too much influence over presidential politics. The same imperfect, yet pretty effective (in Russ Feingold's words) system that was designed to level the playing field, to ensure that no one vote weighed more than another. But said system would LIMIT the Obama campaign to spending only what the McCain campaign was limited to spending.

The Obama campaign could not afford spending limits. It could not afford gestures.

The Obama campaign, having just decided to opt out of public financing because they believed they could raise a LOT MORE money  in a privatized General Election fundraising system just could not afford to divert any attention, any potential funds, to retire Hillary's debt.

This is no secret. Obama's donors are being quite vocal about this:

Mark Gilbert, a financier and Obama supporter who has been raising money in Florida and Utah, agreed that the request to help Clinton has been a challenge.

"What's a good way to put this? There's a feeling that the money she spent at the end may not have needed to have been spent," he said. "You want to help because it's important to Senator Obama. The flip side is, you don't want to take money away from what's needed in November, which is the more important goal."

Another decent fundraising month for McCain.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain raised more than $22 million in June, his best fundraising performance of the year, and ended the month with nearly $27 million cash on hand.

That's nothing compared to what the Democrats routinely raised, of course, but the RNC's fundraising is actually putting McCain in fairly decent shape:

The Republican National Committee, which has been raising money jointly with McCain, collected nearly $26 million in June and had nearly $69 million on hand, officials said.

Marc Ambinder breaks down the Republican hopes leading up to the election:

The McCain campaign is betting that, in the end, the combined cash on hand tallies of the Republican National Committee and the McCain campaign will be roughly equal. [...]

Between now and the election, the McCain campaign and the RNC expect to spend about $200 million to elect McCain.

Paired with this is some buzz that Obama's fundraising has not met expecations. Both Ambinder and Sam Stein are reporting Obama's fundraising may have slowed and Ambinder even calls his decision to opt out of public funding a "gamble" and calculates that Obama would have to raise $75 a month to gain enough of an advantage to put McCain on defense in red states in any serious way. I suspect that Ambinder is being a little alarmist here and I look forward to seeing the Obama campaign and the DNC's combined numbers for June, but it probably doesn't hurt to dial back the expectation that we're going to necessarily rout McCain in fundraising leading up to the election.