Dwarf Report

Dean is on the move.

Almost overnight, Dean has redrawn the contours of the Democratic race, vaulting from dark-horse candidate to top tier on the strength of an extraordinary, Internet-based fundraising operation and the mobilization of party activists fed up with President Bush's policies and, it appears, the lack of a vigorous Democratic opposition in Washington.

This is all true, but there are two problems. 1) His current status is partially owing to the fact that he has been quite active, and therefore has gotten a lot of coverage, and there seems to be some interest in Dean amongst the media, and therefore that is where some of the attention is coming from. Plus, he qualifies as a story, especially if anything positive happens to him. And I will admit that he is more interesting than many of the other Nine.

I will also note his fund-raising success to date is a legit story, and he is doing better than I expected there.

Of course, all this leads to 2) Rising expectations can be dangerous.

And the most shocking thing about these numbers is that Kucinich raised about $1 million!

None of the major candidates besides Dean issued second-quarter fundraising numbers yesterday, although a Kerry adviser said the senator would raise close to $6 million and a Gephardt adviser said his candidate would raise $4 million to $5 million. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) raised about $1 million, according to his campaign, while former senator Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois raised about $150,000. An adviser to Al Sharpton said Sharpton had raised about $80,000.

And is Bush going to have a money edge, or what? Especially since the Dems are going to have to spend their money fighting each other:

Bush's campaign swamped all the Democrats, reporting yesterday that the president had raised $34.2 million in the second quarter, besting the $29.7 million he raised in the second quarter of 1999.

Source: Surge of Cash Puts Pressure on Insurgent Dean To Deliver Votes