Is it practical to assume $250 from each of Obama's donors, though? So much of his support comes from people giving very small contributions. Generally these are coming from students, the poor, and other people who would certainly give more if they could afford to. That might be too rosy a projection.

Barack Obama looks to have a significant advantage in the money-raising department, Christopher. I think that Politico probably will be closer to the truth. The Republicans are dispirited and the McCain campaign is not exactly setting people on fire.

I would dispute the notion that these things are *entirely* relative.  There are diminishing returns on the money spent on a race, at least with respect to advertising (where the majority of it gets spent).  So, for example, in a statewide race, a candidate with $6 million has a much bigger advantage over a candidate with a $3 million than a candidate with $60 million has over one with $30 million.  Blanketing a state like Pennsylvania with 2000 points of advertising costs around around $2-3 million a week.  At that point, though, you're pretty much saturated.  Spending another $2-3 million a week to bump it up to 4000 points a week won't really help (1000 is generally considered heavy).

Things change a bit in a national campaign, where having more money lets you expand the number of states where you're advertising, rather than just the amount you spend in each one.  So Obama can reach the point where spending more money in OH, PA, etc. won't help, and have money left over to compete in states that are more of a long shot like ND or NC.  Still, if McCain has enough money of his own, Obama won't have that huge of an advantage.

Just wait few more days when Clinton supporters start donating McCain

Good news and bad news.

Good news: McCain's internet operations are a joke.

Bad news: McCain's people understand this and will no doubt move to correct it in coming months. Once he gets some competent Web 2.0 designers and developers in-house, he shouldn't have any trouble at all raising many millions over the web this summer and fall.

I don't buy it, tep.  McCain's internet issues have absolutely nothing to do with a lack of competent developers.  His website isn't brilliant, but it's perfectly acceptable.  "Web 2.0"izing it, whatever that means, isn't going to build him a community or suddenly lead to an influx of new donors.  If you could do that, every upstart social network/information exchange/user participatory website with some gradients and wet floor effect would be raking in money.

McCain's internet problem isn't technical, it's personal.  But it would be cool to see some tag clouds for him, I guess.

Since when has McCain actually agreed to be bound by spending limits?  He's saying he repaid the loan and he's free from any restrictions.

areteone,

McCain has said he plans to take public financing for the general election, not the primary (the primary system was what all the controversy was about).  After the Republican Convention, he'll get $85 million for the last 2 months of the campaign.  As an aside, I'm not generally a fan of public financing for elections, but if we're going to have it, we need a system that doesn't force one party to spread the same amount of money over 3 months instead of 2.  Just set a date instead of tying it to the "official" nominations at the conventions.