Three political fundraising headlines

Here are three political fundraising stories I saw on Tuesday that caught my attention:

The Conservative Pulse made it sound as if Ron Paul's fundraising numbers are starting to dry up after the maverick candidate failed to make a significant showing in any primary so far.

The week of January 21st, the Paul campaign added over $2.2 million to their bank account. Last week the campaign raised $1.6 million. This week, all signs suggest that the Paul campaign will take in only about $250k in donations.

Meanwhile, it was interesting to see how far John McCain's luck has changed. Last summer when McCain was at a low point in the polls and his fundraising had bottomed out, he asked to participate in the public campaign finance system.

However, on Tuesday McCain sent letters to the Federal Election Commission and the Treasury Department notifying them of his decision to withdraw from the presidential election financing system.

Though the FEC declared him eligible to receive $5.8 million in December, the money would not have become available until next month. By accepting the money, moreover, McCain would have been required to limit his spending for the primary to about $54 million — an amount the campaign was close to reaching now.

I thought the captain of the "Straight Talk Express" was a a passionate advocate of limits on campaign finances.

Finally, CQ Politics published an article that examines the fundraising powerhouses behind 10 of the best funded incumbent House members. The article shows why it is so hard to beat an incumbent:

In fact, 65 U.S. House incumbents each reported more than $1 million in total receipts last year, including six who topped the $2 million mark, according to a CQ Politics analysis of updated campaign finance reports filed by candidates to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) at the end of January.

Politics shouldn't really count as nonprofit fundraising.