Where Did Obama's Campaign Money Really Come From?

Things that make me go "Hmmmmm". In both the Democratic and Republican nomination races, we have seen popular, initially well-funded, well-known and qualified candidates bow out because not enough cash was coming in for them to continue to fund their campaigns. We are now down to three candidates (one of whom doesn't really have to spend another cent) who have survived this far.

McCain has deep pockets, and his war hero, "stay the course" message won him the votes he needed early.
Clinton has a lot of corporate and labor backing, and a significant chunk of her own money.
Obama is, uh, WTF?

Where did he really get his money? According to the International Herald Tribune, as of last month he has brought in $225 million. If you believe it was all from individuals emptying their piggy banks to send their pennies, or even Internet contributions (most, according to his campaign office, have been less than $100 each), I'd like some of what you're smoking. A year ago, before anyone even knew who he was, MSNBC says he already had $25 million in his coffers. How?

I'm not accusing him of doing anything wrong or illegal or immoral or fattening. I'm just saying that the amount of money he has raised is far too much to be attributed to individual contributors acting alone. I'm guessing there are a lot of high rollers betting on this horse, and it puzzles me.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't cry crocodile tears if he became the nominee, and I'd probably even vote for him for President. But I do think it's worth considering whether he's as un-beholding as he makes out to be.

Gadget Pron

Theres a copy of Vista Home Premium upgrade edition on my patio. I'll install it tomorrow. I'll be installing the 32-bit version, even though I have a quad core 64-bit CPU, there's nothing out there which takes advantage of the extra oomph. After a year of Vista 64, this is a real shame.

Turns out the reason I couldn't find an ATI All-in-Wonder card at Fry's is they don't make them anymore. AMD (which bought ATI a while ago) has decided the discrete capture board is their marketing strategy, probably because nVidia has never pushed an all-in-one display+capture card. PNY made one from a GeForce7500, but it's not on the market anymore that I can see. So I have on order an ATI TV Wonder card and an ATI display card, which will go into the machine when I get them in a week or so. Both cards support HD, which the All-in-Wonder doesn't.