There's a bit of buzz, as expected, over Howard Dean's fundraising totals this quarter and whether or not the Blog will break Trippi's $5M Bat and all. The campaign is apparently even putting out calls to volunteers near their check-processing center in Charlottesville for help, because the volume of snailmail donations is overwhelming. What a problem to have.

They're expecting a rush of 70,000 letters between now and October 1. Not surprisingly, they want to open and count them by midnight on the 30th, and we need at least 5 volunteers a shift for two shifts of 9-5 and 5-11 on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

[...] It should be really exciting on the 30th: Dean will be at a rally in LA. Starting at 9 PM Pacific time, he'll start announcing up-to-the-minute totals, going until midnight their time. Our efforts will help jack up those numbers--a lot!

So, that's all good. But here's the thing: I don't think that the individual candidates' numbers in comparison to Bush are interesting. What's interesting is how much money the whole Democratic field brought in vs. the whole Republican field (which happens to consist of one person.) I don't like articles like this, which make it seem like none of these Dems has a chance against the Bush fundraising juggernaut:

Howard Dean is setting a torrid pace in the contest for dollars in the Democratic presidential campaign but it's still President Bush who is proving to be the superstar in raising campaign cash overall.

Well, that depends on how you're measuring things, doesn't it? What I find interesting is how much money people are willing to give to a Democratic candidate even without the sure bet that their money is going to the eventual nominee. That's the more interesting comparison and the one I'll be watching (but don't expect ever to be articulated in the 'mainstream' media.) You watch, it'll all be: "Howard Dean raised Umpteen Million, but that Pales in Comparison to King George" without any consideration of the broader context, as usual.