Fri, 02/23/2007 - 10:51am

And they’re off! On the cusp of what many experts consider to be a-billion-dollar presidential campaign the “serious” contenders will have 100 million dollars in their respective war chests by the start of ’08.

On the Democratic side Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, (D-NY) is leading the pack by twenty-points but she seems to have the most to lose from the emergence of fellow Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL) as evidence by his recent three day swing through what most considered Clinton territory. The freshman Senator raised a reported 1.3 million dollars that otherwise would likely have gone to Clinton on Feb. 19th at an event hosted by the Hollywood powerbrokers Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen.

The next day at the Democratic forum in Carson City, Nevada New Mexico Governor and former Clinton administration official Bill Richardson, who is the early favorite to get the vice-presidential nomination, proposed that all the democratic presidential candidates sign an agreement stating that they will not engage in negative campaigning against one another.

During that same forum former North Carolina Senator John Edwards seemed to be the most liberal of the major candidates. During his closing statements he explained that incremental change would have to give way to what he called “radical change” on the issues of health care, education and foreign policy.

The most remarkable occurrence in the forum was the contrast in responses for long time Delaware Senator Joseph Biden. When Sen. Biden was introduced his reception was hardly audible compared to Richardson and Edwards and Clinton. But, as Biden concluded his two speeches sandwiched around a question and answer session he may have received the loudest ovation of the day.

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Christopher Jacquet

Photo courtesy of Flickr member red8sk5

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