Romney Rakes In $18M—and That Worries the GOP

Fundraising reports are starting to trickle in from the GOP presidential field, and the results look great—for Barack Obama. Even Mitt Romney’s vaunted money machine collected only $18 million in the first true quarter of fundraising, a big step back from his 2008 showing, Politico reports. The results only get uglier from there, with Tim Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman not even cracking $5 million, and the Republican National Committee $18.5 million in debt.

Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee, by contrast, say they’ll jointly raise more than $60 million this quarter, with a whopping 493,697 individual donors chipping in. Republicans have always expected Obama to out-fundraise them, but not this badly. “Is that sobering? Sure it is. It’s a wakeup call,” said RNC member Henry Barbour. Many donors are waiting to see who emerges from the unimpressive field, one former Bush bundler says. “There’s an army out there that’s not on the field yet.” (More Barack Obama stories.)