The ability of the presidential campaign team of Senator Barack Obama to raise what New York's Newsdayrightly described as an "eye-popping" $25 million in the first quarter of 2007, nearly tying him with Hillary Clinton's $26 million, is eloquent testimony to the extraordinarily extravagant likely cost of the 2008 US presidential election. Collectively, the Democratic candidates raised nearly $80 million in the first quarter, outpacing the Republican field for the first time since proper records began in 1970s.
Republicans took in just over $50 million in the same timeframe and the Republican viewed as his party's leading candidate, Senator John McCain, raised about half what Ms Clinton and Mr Obama reported. The overall figures, commentators suggest, reflect the Democratic Party's expanded, energised base, its mastery of the new art of Internet fundraising, and a strong sense of confidence among the rank and file that they must and will take back the White House.
What is particularly striking is that the huge Obama sum and the wide base he has developed have materialised in 10 weeks - he attracted more than 108,000 separate contributions, and more than half of those donors, largely giving small sums, sent money over the Internet. He raised $6.9 million online, Ms Clinton $4.2 million. Mr Obama, although still behind in the polls both nationally and in the crucial first primary in Iowa, has certainly signalled to Ms Clinton that he is no lightweight and, despite what her campaign team has wished to suggest, her nomination is no foregone conclusion.
Yet these are early days. The full election cycle is likely to require candidates to dig far deeper into supporters' pockets and to break records. When President Bush won re-election against Senator John Kerry in 2004, that presidential race shattered previous fundraising and spending levels to become the most expensive in US history. According to the Centre for Responsive Politics, which monitors election spending, during the two-year cycle Mr Bush took in a record $360 million, easily exceeding the $193 million he raised four years earlier. John Kerry raised more than $317 million.
Campaign law reform, specifically the ceilings on individual donations of $2,300 for each of the primary and general elections, is supposed to curb the influence of big donors, and might have been thought to make raising funds more difficult. But it appears, notably in Mr Obama's case, that the individual donor base is booming.
Not that winning the fundraising primary is any guarantee of success in the real thing. Howard Dean, having revolutionised Democratic fundraising last time, managed to blow away $40 million on his way to a third-place finish in Iowa. Then oblivion. And the Republican cash frontrunner this time, Governor Mitt Romney, may have raised $10 million more than Mr McCain, but most observers still rate him as an outsider. The truth is, while it's impossible to run in the US without money, money can't buy love. It's all to play for.