Heralded as he is for drawing a huge number of small donors to his presidential campaign, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is still collecting plenty of $1,000+ plus checks, as this story in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune explains. Obama was in the Minneapolis area for a big fundraising event, at which attendees ponied up $1,000 for dinner and $5,000 for a picture with the candidate.

Quarterly fundraising reports for federal races were due Tuesday, so the next round of fundraising/fund-racing stories is coming out. Of particular interest, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) continues to raise big bucks from the usual corporate interests, and Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) hits up the members of his family who haven't been indicted for campaign cash.

More than six months away from election day already the three remaining presidential candidates have already raised double what was raised in the entirety of the 2004 presidential contest. Nearly half a billion dollars has flowed to the coffers of Senators Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Barack Obama, and more than half of that has come in donations of $1,000 or more.

Seems Republican lobbyists are closing ranks around Sen. John McCain, hosting an exclusive, high-dollar fundraiser (full article only available to Roll Call subscribers) for him in Washington, DC tomorrow night -- the venue is the Willard Hotel which is a block from the White House and which, rumor has it, was the birthplace of the term "lobbyist." Got your $2,300 ready?

President Bush found time to meet with some run-of-the-mill constituents in between fundraising events this week according to the Los Angeles Times and this article marveling at the President's enduring fundraising prowess.

Despite persistently low approval ratings that prevent him from advancing any significant policy initiatives, Bush has managed to fill his remaining hours in office with bunches of campaign contribution collections nights for other Republicans:

There is an interesting pair of articles in Business Week contrasting both the fundraising and organizing styles of Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as they duke it out for the Democratic presidential nomination. The two campaigns really provide a marked contrast in terms of how they view the engagement of small donors -- and even non-donors -- on the internet and how that has been reflected in their fundraising numbers.

The Republican presidential primary of 2000 featured a particularly vicious contest between Sen. John McCain and George W. Bush but when it comes to big money, all is forgiven. President Bush has sent his biggest donors and bundlers McCain's way now that McCain is the presumptive frontrunner for the GOP nomination.

Gerard Wright at the Syndey Morning Herald raises an eyebrow at the cost of the American presidential race as the estimated cost continues to rise. Zeroing in on the immediate "campign in trouble" outcry after Hillary Clinton loaned her own campaign money the article examines money as a "barometer" of public support.

After Super Tuesday, the race was on to establish financial dominance:

Rep. Chris Murphy (D-CT) wrote earlier this week about the enormous amount of time he, as a legislator, must devote to fundraising for his re-election campaign. Further proof of the dominance raising money has come to assume in the lives of members of Congress comes in the form of Rep. Darlene Hooley's (D-OR) announcement today that she will retire from Congress. She cited the demands of fundraising as part of her reason for stepping down.

It's Super Tuesday! Voters in 24 states head to the polls to pick the Republican and Democratic nominees for President but the don't let all this talk of voting distract from what really matters: how much money are these people raising, anyway?