Informed Speculation

…while Edwards whiffs, despite his team’s best efforts at the spin game:

Aides to Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said today that their campaign’s strategy of aggressively cultivating small donors was the key to meeting their $9 million second-quarter fundraising goal.

But with Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, expected to raise about triple that amount, Mr. Edwards still lags far behind his main competitors for the Democratic nomination. The Edwards campaign’s total for this period is also less than the $14 million it raised during the first quarter. And Senator Obama’s campaign announced that he raised $32.5 million this quarter and reached 258,000 donors since the beginning of this year.

On a conference call with reporters, Jonathan Prince, the deputy campaign manager, and Joe Trippi, a senior adviser to Mr. Edwards, downplayed the much higher numbers posted by rivals and instead emphasized the Edwards campaign’s efforts to expand its donor base. They said the campaign was “well ahead of schedule” in its quest to reach the $40 million mark by the Iowa caucuses in January.

“We feel we’re exactly where we need to be,” Mr. Trippi said. “This isn’t a money race, it’s a race to win the nomination, and that’s what we intend to do.”

Mr. Trippi said the campaign had topped 100,000 individual donors and more than half of the $9 million it took in came from smaller contributors, many who donated on the campaign’s Web site or at one of its “Small Change for Big Change” events. The campaign’s average donation was under $125, Mr. Trippi said.

While exact numbers will not be available until the release of the official reports filed with the Federal Elections Commission, many of the candidates are letting preliminary figures slip out.

In an e-mail message, Mr. Obama’s campaign announced today that it had raised at least $32.5 million during the second quarter from more than 154,000 donors. In the message, Mr. Obama said it was evidence that he and his supporters had “built the largest grassroots campaign in history for this stage of a Presidential race.”

Last week, aides to Mrs. Clinton projected she would raise about $27 million this period, which would be about $1 million more than her first quarter total.

I haven’t seen any Republican numbers yet – when I do, I’ll let you know…