Raw Politics: Show me the money

"Raw Politics" on "Anderson Cooper 360" delivers the latest political news with a wry sense of a humor and without spin.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Way back when we started reporting on this presidential race, (sometime in the spring of 1984, if I recall correctly) all the analysts kept saying "It's about the money."

We feverishly whispered about each quarter of campaign fundraising as if we were talking about the Rosetta Stone.

If candidates showed up with less money than we thought they should have, they were panned as wannabes without the organizational skills or donors to win a nomination. If candidates said they did not expect to raise much, we praised them as shrewd players of the political game, lowering expectations to evoke a surprise headline later.

We said the big money contenders would prove juggernauts, unbeatable because they could buy all the media the others could not afford. We said the little money guys were finished before they started.

We were a little right and a lot wrong.

Mitt Romney, the guy with a $200-million fortune, dropped tens of millions, wildly outspending his competitors, and rose only from an unknown to a respectable political trivia question. While Mike Huckabee, one of the poorest of the rich crowd that aspires to the White House, is still plugging away and getting enough bang for his buck to have even John McCain still keeping an eye on him.

Speaking of McCain, wasn't he so broke a few months ago that his campaign headquarters was in a cardboard box under an interstate overpass?

John Edwards, who was getting haircuts worth more than my entire head, was supposed to pound his opponents with money. Gone.

Now we are all talking about how Hillary Clinton appears to be having money trouble; ponying up $5 million of her own bucks to fight the surging Barack Obama. And simultaneously we are talking about how cleverly Obama built such a broad base of donors that he could tap again and again as the race went on.

The truth is, I believe money really does matter in presidential races; and in the protracted battle the Dems are now waging, Obama's extra monetary muscle surely won't hurt.

As a practical matter, an American with average wealth and income is about as likely to become president as I am to become Miss South Carolina. E-mail to a friend

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