Another Ron Paul Surge

Here's a screencap of Ron Paul's campaign site around midnight this morning.

Here's a screencap from five minutes ago.

In about 11 hours Paul has raised $1.6 million. That surge is part of a mass November 5th fundraiser dreamed up by grassroots Paul supporters: "Remember, remember, the fifth of November" by raising $5 million in one day for Paul. The campaign had fallen well short of its $4 million goal for October, raising some doubt whether it could raise $12 million by December 31. If the donors merely keep up their pace today, they'll get the campaign halfway to that goal with 55 days left. By comparison, Howard Dean blew away the rest of the Democrats in the final quarter of 2003 by raising $15 million. That was after three months as the frontrunner, the endorsement of Al Gore, etc.

Even if you don't like Paul, you have to gasp at what's happening in the GOP race. There are three phenomenons running in tandem: Paul's fundraising, Huckabee's cash-strapped poll surge, and McCain's running-on-fumes poll comeback. Anybody working for the Rudy-Fred-Mitt power trio has to wonder why the Republican base is so hungry for these other choices. (Also, more reason to ignore the campaign finance reformers who whine about big money trumping ideas and good people in politics.)

UPDATE 4:01: Right now Paul's reporting $5.45 million, meaning he's 1)doubled his fourth quarter fundraising in one day and 2)already surpassed his entire fundraising total from the third quarter. I'm pretty sure Paul's broken the record for one-day fundraising in a primary campaign. (Mitt Romney raised $2.5 million in hard dollars at one January event, then inflated the total with $4 million of pledges. Since his donations have fallen off in successive quarters I don't know if all those pledges were fulfilled.)