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Obama Campaign Takes in Record $745 Million Haul

Barack Obama's campaign raised a record $745 million during the presidential campaign, shattering all previous fundraising records.

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Obama's fundraising ability has many in Washington declaring the public financing system effectively null and void unless Congress vastly increases the amount of taxpayer money a candidate would receive by staying inside the system. But there is likely to be little motivation in a Democratic-dominated government to overhaul the rules that served Obama so well.

There is also talk of lowering the $200 threshold above which campaigns must disclose a donor's identity in response to irregularities among some of Obama's small donors.

But even if the spending limits for those accepting public money are raised, Obama will probably stick with his own formidable fundraising machine if he runs for reelection in 2012, said Vanderbilt University political scientist John G. Geer, and that will force Republicans thinking about running against him to offer themselves as candidates who also could go without public financing.

"When Republicans are evaluating their candidates, fundraising prowess is going to have to be even more important," he said. "If Bush was their gold standard for fundraising, they're going to need someone even better. It's going to be tough; how many people can bring that kind of money to the table?"

Still, Geer predicted that Obama's fundraising might not be as powerful four years from now, given that so much of this year's giving was driven by anger against Bush and that some of his supporters may grow disillusioned. But Alan Solomont, a Boston financier who led Obama's New England fundraising operation, disagreed.

"What this campaign represented was a moment that the American people stood up and decided to take their government back," he said, "So what's important in next four years is to engage people in their government, and that will result in maintaining this kind of effort four years from now."

Staff writer Michael D. Shear contributed to this report.