Hillary Clinton's challenger now has a war chest to add to his anti-war credentials, writes Denis Staunton
Barack Obama's astonishing success in raising $25 million during the first three months of this year has transformed the Democratic presidential race overnight by changing the nature of both his own candidacy and that of the party's frontrunner, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
For Obama, it has removed any doubt that, after just two years in the Senate and less than three as a national figure, he is a serious contender capable of sustaining a competitive campaign right through this extended primary season.
The effect on Clinton may be even greater, as her campaign's studied air of invincibility has been shattered along with her hopes of blowing rivals out of the water with her superior fundraising operation.
Until this week, few had any doubt that Clinton's first-quarter fundraising total would dwarf that of every other Democratic candidate, reinforcing her image as the toughest, most powerful and most sustainable candidate in the field.When she announced on Sunday that she had raised $26 million from 50,000 donors, Clinton's supporters were euphoric. This was, after all, more money than any candidate for either party has ever raised at this stage of a campaign and it made former vice-presidential candidate John Edwards's hefty $15 million haul look puny by comparison.
The Clinton campaign knew that Obama was raising serious money and that his total would not be too far behind hers but nobody predicted how close he would come to overtaking her or that it would be drawn from a donor base fully twice as big as Clinton's.
Nine out of 10 of Obama's 100,000 contributors have given less than $100, so he can return to them many times for more before they reach the legal limit of $2,300 for the primary contest.
Donors can give a candidate a further $2,300 for the general election but such funds cannot be used during the primary race and must be returned if the candidate fails to win his or her party's nomination. While Clinton focused on elite fundraisers such as the $4,600-a-head cocktail reception actor Gabriel Byrne will host at his New York home later this month, Obama held many larger events, charging between $25 and $100. More than a quarter of his total came over the internet, by far the cheapest way to raise money because it involves practically no overheads.
Money is not everything, of course, even in what promises to be America's first billion-dollar presidential election. Just ask Howard Dean, who raised huge sums on the internet as an anti-war candidate, only to watch his candidacy go down in flames in 2004.
Or consider Republican Phil Gramm, who raised $13.5 million in the first quarter of 1995, declaring that "ready money is the mother's milk of politics" but sank without trace the following year.
If Obama's $25 million does not guarantee him the Democratic nomination, however, it is testimony to the success of a campaign that has focused almost exclusively on his biography and personal qualities while avoiding policy detail.
Obama cannot compete with Clinton in terms of experience or mastery of policy - but no candidate in either party can compete with him for charisma.
Born in Hawaii and raised partly in Indonesia, the son of a black African father and a white American mother, Obama tells a personal story that is at once exotic and thoroughly American in its message of hope over despair and co-operation over conflict.
A black man who is comfortable in his own skin and who speaks eloquently about race and injustice, he is nonetheless a reassuring figure for many white Americans, who feel no sense of reproach from him.
His supporters feel unusually good about themselves when they help him, as a major Washington fundraiser who has switched his loyalty from Clinton to Obama told me recently.
"We were young in the 60s and experienced that transformative moment. Now we're in our 60s. Obama represents another transformative moment and it would just be tragic not to be a part of it if we can," he said.
Although Obama is to the left of Clinton on most issues, he inspires little of the hostility she evokes among Republicans, many of whom are impressed by the respect he appears to offer to their views.
His most powerful advantage in the presidential race may, however, be his early opposition to the Iraq war, which makes him almost unique among candidates on either side. Obama was not in the US Senate in 2003, when Clinton, Edwards and others voted to authorise the use of force in Iraq.
But as a state senator in Illinois in 2002, he delivered a stirring, prescient speech condemning the rush to war and predicting the disaster that would follow the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
"I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda," he said.
While other candidates have struggled to explain their record on the war, Obama's early opposition to it has left him free to take a more hawkish position today without paying a political price.
Last week, for example, as Senate majority leader Harry Reid threatened to cut off funding for the war unless president George Bush agrees a date for withdrawing troops, Obama said he would oppose any move to cut funding.
Despite his broad appeal, his personal charm and his fundraising success, Obama remains well behind Clinton in national polls and she remains the favourite to win the nomination.
This week's setback could even serve to strengthen Clinton's campaign by freeing her from an image of invincibility that may have alienated as many people as it attracted.
Obama can't avoid talking about policy for much longer and both Clinton and Edwards will be formidable opponents in the debates that will be held over the coming months.
Obama's success will also expose him to closer, more critical scrutiny from the press, which has until now been overwhelmingly sympathetic and relatively unchallenging.
But for now, the momentum is clearly moving behind the surging candidacy of a skinny black lawyer with a velvety voice, an unusual name and a compelling story of hope in a dark time.