With Hillary Slipping in the Polls, will she soon have trouble with her fundraising?

Coming from nowhere, without any strong pre-existing donor base, Senator Barack Obama’s sensational showing in the first quarter — amassing $25 million in campaign contributions — has left the Clintons sputtering. And his astonishing bottom line is only part of his surprise upset in beating Hillary. While she narrowly edged out the new kid on the political block in the total amount raised, Obama outscored Hillary 2:1 where it really counts: the number of individual donors. This is a big win for Obama and demonstrates both the depth of support for an attractive alternative to Hillary, as well as the finely tuned organizing skills of the first term senator.

In the first three months of 2007, 100,000 people gave Obama money, while Hillary’s fund-raising base was only half as large with 50,000. That’s a big difference. . . .

Hillary won’t disclose how many of her donors have reached the maximum of $2200 for the primary, and $2200 for the general election. But, reports of her fund-raising tactics suggest that she squeezed her donors dry. In practical terms, this means that she has fewer donors to go back to for later donations. . . .

With polls such as this and this, Clinton has something to worry about. She is so much better known than her opponents that she has almost nowhere to go but down.