Hillary is No Longer Inevitable

With the late release of Barack Obama’s reports, everyone expected his numbers to be high, but not this high. As you probably already know, he has raised $25 million for the first quarter. $25 million is insanely close to Hillary Clinton’s $26 million, which was still seen as mind-blowing. Considering Howard Dean didn’t reach those types of numbers until September of ’03, the fact that not one, but two, candidates have reached those sort of numbers in the first quarter, shows that this election cycle is going to be more than expensive.

Previous to this week’s "you show me yours and I’ll show you mine" dollar reports, Hillary was seen as the absolute front-runner because of her substantial fundraising base. The Clinton name and Hillary's reputation for being a go-getter has carried her far; most expected it would carry her into the White House, or at least through the Democratic primaries. She has campaigned on the message that she could not be beaten, and it was actually working for her. That’s what we thought, at least, until the reports were released.

Now it looks as though Hillary is no longer on top. The fundraising efforts of Obama have placed him on the tail of Hillary, and given all other candidates a run for their money. Past elections reflect an inconsistent showing of what money will do for a candidate’s status in the primaries. Phil Gramm was the leading Republican in 1995 and John Edwards was the leading fundraiser at this point in 2003, and neither one of them won the nomination. But, in 1999, both Bush and Gore ended up as their parties' money leaders, and won.

Since there are two candidates that are so close in the fundraising race, what does that mean for the primaries? Who will take the lead during the next quarter, and how will it affect the Republican primaries? As promising and exciting as the Democratic pimaries are, only one thing is for sure: Hillary is no longer inevitable.