WASHINGTON -- Here we are less than four months away from the actual start of the 2004 presidential race. Delegates will begin to be selected in late January. The preliminary season is in its final stage. The third quarter of 2003 proved to be reasonably decisive for the Democrats.
We always look at the money as a prime indicator of strength during this pre-election year and there was a major movement in that race during the past quarter.
Gov. Howard Dean jumped into a commanding lead in the money race. Official numbers will be out in a couple of days, but it is safe to believe that he will have raised somewhere over $15 million during the past quarter -- an all-time record for a Democrat and nearly as much as his eight rivals raised combined. Sen. John Kerry is still in pretty good shape because of his earlier success, and he may still have more money on hand than Dean. But the rest have faltered. They raised pretty much what they had expected, or a little less. The got hit with the phenomenon of Dean's money machine.