Democrats rock

There had been some concerned expressed a few months back that Kerry would be at a financial disadvantage during the general election campaign. Both Bush and Kerry received about $75 million in federal funding to run those campaigns. They received the money when they officially accepted their party's nomination. But Kerry accepted his more than a month before Bush. That meant that he had to stretch the money over a longer period of time.

Looks like we needn't have worried:

Kerry finished the first half of October with a slight cash edge over Bush, though each has less than a third of his $75 million budget left. Both accepted full government financing for the general election.

Kerry had just over $24 million on hand as of mid-month, compared with $22 million left for Bush. Both spent around $14 million in the first half of October, according to their pre-election reports.

Once again proving that Democrats are better at managing money.

The same report contains financial information for the parties and other activist organizations:

The DNC spent nearly $52 million total in the first two weeks of October, while the RNC used up nearly $43 million, pre-election campaign finance reports they filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission show.

The GOP committee entered the last two weeks of the race with more than twice as much in the bank as its Democratic rival. The RNC had nearly $53 million on hand, compared with $24 million for the DNC.

Do the math and that means that DNC raised $76 million to the RNC's $106 million. Not to shabby since some were predicting a 2 or 3-to-1 money advantage to the Republicans. And, despite those advantages, they still can't put the Democrats away.