Will President for Food

A pair of tweets caught my eye this morning. First, Ed Morrissey noted that

Obama raised more in March 2008 on his own than he did with the DNC in March 2012 http://is.gd/bdPxRU Off the pace.

Ed’s Hot Air piece goes into more detail:

These aren’t bad numbers, but they aren’t good news for Obama, either. In March 2008, the Obama campaign raised on its own over $56.7 million. Nor were they the only Democrats in the field raising cash. Hillary Clinton raised $35.8 million in the same month, for a combined Democratic haul four years ago of $92.5 million. Obama should have access to all of the same donors by himself this time around, as he has not faced a primary challenge. Instead, Obama remains significantly off of his own 2008 pace of fundraising, and way under the Democratic donation performance of that cycle.

Then there’s not-so-insignificant inflation since 2008 to take into account, and let’s not forget that the incumbent has a natural fundraising advantage over the challenger. By all accounts, March should have been a $100 million month, easy.

But it’s Dave in Fla who made the big catch:

Coupled with an astounding burn rate because he is paying salaries instead of volunteers … disaster is brewing.

When an incumbent officeholder doesn’t face a primary challenge, then his ability to fundraise might be the best way to tell how he’s doing with his constituents. And right now, it doesn’t look like Obama is doing very well at all.