Don't you remember that BHO promised to take public financing? He can raise all the money he wants, but he'll have to give it back. That is, unless he wants to break another promise he made to the American people and continue to practice the politics as usual.

This guy is a fraud and McCain will smoke him in a 46 state sweep.

The long term what?

Lets look at reality: advertising costs money, strategists cost money, ground games cost money. The issue should not be how much we raise or how much we spend. It should be how it is raised and how open the records are.

If we were to really cut the money out of politics it would lead to less informed voters, less effective campaigning and less overall interest in the process.

Because the GE is only two months long. The primary season, as evidenced by setting the convention dates back even later, has basically been extended over the whole of the summer. Acknowledging that, he will have to make campaign stops, advertisements, and everything else to rally support in time for the fall. As evidenced by his fund raising woes, if they DO keep up (and theres no guarantee of that) he won't be exactly great shape into the very compact GE period.

Its also important to note that you CAN start donating for the general election right now. For a man whose presumably the nominee, it would make sense to start hitting the rubber chicken circuit to start raising the funds for the fall. But he hasn't even managed to do that. And the same is true across the board of all Republicans, who are generally facing steep donation curves this season.

Because the more he has in the bank now, the less he has to fly off to California, DC, or New York to do those embarrassing fundraising dinners.  It's not a good thing to have to raise money while campaigning.

Between Obama and Clinton, they have more than 1.25 million donors, the vast majority of whom are nowhere near tapped out.

What's more, even as Obama and Clinton are raising buttloads of money, the Democratic congressional, senatorial and national committees are also badly outraising their counterparts (well, except for the DNC/RNC, but everything else more than makes up for it).

...do you honestly think Clinton would be spared the GOP's 527 slime machine?

I'd absolutely love it if this were true.  Unfortunately, I doubt the GOP would be so accommodating :)

Except McCain could be raising general election funds right now. Until we see the FEC paperwork we have no idea how much this 12 million is for the primary or the GE. More to the point, as I point out in a post above, the late conventions compact the GE and makes primary spending more important. A man with 12 million a month against a candidate with 3 times or more of that, over the summer, is going to be ill-prepared on the ground to roll for the GE.

All this also ignores that even during the height of the Republican primary the money was not flowing in anywhere near the amount Democrats were raising, and McCain was even the loser then fund raising wise. McCain should be hitting the rubber chicken circuit, and I think to a certain extent he is, but its still not coalescing for him. I should also point out its not for any other Republican either; all of their committees, with the exception of the RNC, are low on money, as are individual candidates.

There is the specter of 527's, but after the Supreme Court wack against them, there may be an attempt, but I wouldn't be surprised if the DNC wasn't ready to launch litigation the moment one started up.