Who’ll have most for February 5th 2008 “Super Duper Tuesday”?

The big news in the 2008 White House race this week has been the announcements from the various camps about how successful they have been in fund-raising in the first quarter. Hillary Clinton kicked off earlier in the week with a statement from her campaign that a massive $26m had been raised from about 50,000 donors.

The Obama camp waited a couple of days until last night when they announced that $26m had been brought in from more than 100,000 donors.

More importantly is the make up of the gifts received – cash raised for the main presidential election cannot be used for the vital primary campaign and here, as the ABC report suggests, Obama is reported to have a substantial lead.

Cash is going to be even more critical next year because the programme of primaries has been compressed with states covering well over half America’s population now voting on February 5th. Just about the only way of making an impression in so many states on that day is with money.

The number of donors that the candidates have is critical because of the strict campaign finance rules that are in force. The most any individual can give to the primary campaign is $2,300 which as George Stephanopoulos of ABC news explains – click on the video above – helps Obama because he has twice as many small donors that he can go back to.

These developments have prompted me to take my first serious risks of the campaign. I now rate Obama’s chances of getting the Democrat nomination as substantially better than the current 2.6/1 Betfair price would suggest.

I’m very attracted by the Spreadfair spreadbetting exchange market where 25 points are given to the overall winner of the Presidential race and 10 points to the runner-up. So my bets totally £100 at the 5 and 5.2 level will give me a profit of £490 if he makes it onto the ticket and just under £1,960 if he wins in November 2008. My maximum loss will be £510.

Even better this has been done with a credit account so I have not had to lock up any cash whatsoever now.

I’ve felt that Obama had potential since tipping him here when he was 50/1 in May 2005. That was speculative. This is now serious.

Personal note. I’m changing jobs this Easter. After spending two years running the fundraising as Development Director at the University of York I am now moving to the Open University after Easter to carry out the same role. This means that I will not have to do the weekly commute from Bedford where I live to Yorkshire

Mike Smithson