The money wars

The Washington Post reports that Barack Obama, who raised $127 million in three months (February-April) raised only $22 million in May:

[T]he campaign, combined with the Democratic National Committee, hopes to have raised $450 million by Election Day. . . .
Several of Obama's top fundraisers said yesterday that they don't think trend lines showing three straight months of declining donations to the candidate are cause for concern. But they said the campaign has recognized it will need to expand efforts to raise money from high-dollar donors in order to meet budget projections.
"It's one of the reasons why the Clinton people are so important," said Kirk Wagar, Obama's Florida finance chairman. "Most of us have beaten our Rolodexes pretty badly."

Ah, so the Clinton-Obama thing gets interesting now, huh? Meanwhile, in the Republican camp:

Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign said Thursday that Republicans anticipate raising a combined $400 million war chest for the general election campaign against Sen. Barack Obama this fall.

The massive cost of defeating Hillary has left Obama hurting, especially since he needs the Clinton money machine on his side now.

UPDATE: Sean Oxendine at Next Right notices Team Obama working the news cycle to create the appearance of momentum:

In the heat of the most competitive primary in recent times, Obama managed to get his fundraising dollars counted in 3-4 days. But now, its taking him 3 weeks to do it?
It is still idle speculation, but we might be in for a treat tomorrow or next Friday (or whatever day they can bury the numbers).

A big part of the fundraising slowdown for Obama is probably due to the fact that so much of his support is based in academia, which goes on vacation June-August.