Democrats: Party of the rich

Barack Obama's campaign raised somewhere north of $640 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The latest available figures are only through Oct. 15, and it's likely the final total will be nearly $700 million. By comparison, John McCain's campaign raised $370 million, and as the CRP notes:

Because McCain opted into the public financing system during the general election, he faced an $84 million limit on what he could spend, putting him at a huge disadvantage compared to Obama, who raised $66 million more than that in September alone.

Just in case you're wondering, the Republican National Committee's expenditures could not have possibly made up the gap between McCain's $84 million and Obama's fundraising, which was about $150 million in September alone. The RNC raised only $336 million in the entire 2-year cycle.

If you think about it, the Obama campaign was the biggest growth industry in America over the past two years. Not all of the campaign's expenditures have been fully itemized, but they spent more than $160 million on TV ads.

In discussions of "what went wrong" for the GOP this year, the Democrats' massive financial advantage in the 2008 cycle has to be taken into account.

(Cross-posted at AmSpecBlog.)