October 03, 2007 1:16 PM
ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf Reports: It dominated headlines yesterday when Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, announced her campaign juggernaut had outpaced all rivals in the campaign fundraising horse race with a $27 million haul in the third quarter.
Today's fundraising announcement by (9-term) Rep. Ron Paul, the Republican Libertarian ob-gyn (MD) from Texas, doesn't involve quite as much money, but is downright jaw-dropping.
His campaign is revealing today that in the 3rd quarter Paul raised $5,080,000. This is more than double his 2nd quarter figure of $2.4 million and no small sum for an insurgent (i.e., non-establishment controlled – Ed.) campaign.
Comparatively, Paul's Q3 figure is five times what was raised in the same period by GOP rival former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who is often given a better chance at the party nomination by political pundits (i.e., establishment controlled pollsters –Ed.). It puts Paul in the same fundraising neighborhood as top-tier Republican candidates like Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. (who raised $6,000,000 in Q3, but has less than half the net campaign cash-on-hand than Rep. Paul – Ed.)
Paul has become the buzz candidate with his hearty and vocal supporters, omnipresent on the Internet and at campaign events. But Paul's strict Libertarianism -- he is as vocal in his opposition to the Iraq war as he is in his support for the 2nd Amendment -- could hurt him with the GOP base who will ultimately choose the Republican nominee. (What??? – 70% of Americans oppose the Iraq war, and almost all Republicans and a great many others, including many Democrats, support the 2nd Amendment!!! Ed.).